This weekend I had the chance to see David Kaczynski, the brother of Ted Kaczynski, speak about his experiences and opposition to the death penalty. He spoke of the agony he and his wife went through as they came to realize that his brother was the “Unabomber,” and the terrible life-and-death decision they had to make about whether to turn him in and possibly expose him to execution at the hands of the state.

But the story of his brother was not the most horrifying tale he had to tell.

After an extensive legal battle to ensure his brother would not be executed, David Kaczynski received a call from Bill Babbitt, a man who had gone through a similar experience. Bill had read a newspaper article about the savage beating of an elderly woman in his neighborhood, and, suspecting the criminal was his mentally ill brother, Manny Babbitt, turned him in to the police. Because the woman had died of a heart attack during the attack, Manny was charged with murder and was facing an upcoming execution.

David Kaczynski compared the two criminal cases for us. Both Ted Kaczynski and Manny Babbitt were charged with murder. They both were diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia and Babbitt also suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder since he returned from the Vietnam War. Both of the cases were tried in Sacramento, Calif. The criminals’ victims in each case were white.

David Kaczynski also pointed out the differences in each case. Ted Kaczynski had killed four people with significant premeditation. Manny Babbitt’s victim had died of a heart attack during the crime. Ted Kaczynski had graduated from Harvard and had a Ph.D. Manny Babbitt never finished high school. Kaczynski’s family could afford experienced, talented lawyers. Babbitt’s lawyer had never been in a criminal case and was allegedly drunk during most of the case. Kaczynski was white. Babbitt was black.

Ted Kaczynski will spend the rest of his life in prison. Manny Babbitt was executed.

It would be great to think that such disparities were a thing of the past, but this is not the case. We like to say that the death penalty is for those who commit the worst crimes. Unfortunately, the death sentence more often goes to those who have the worst lawyers. This means that criminals without significant financial resources – such as the poor, the mentally unsound and all too often racial minorities – are much more likely to receive the death penalty than criminals in my demographic.

Disparities based on wealth are, of course, not restricted to death penalty cases. The problem is endemic in our justice system. Just think of all the rich college students who are able to get out of alcohol-related crimes because their parents can afford expensive lawyers. But in capital cases, this disparity decides so much more than whether you will have a blemish on your criminal record; it decides whether you will be allowed to live.

The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are inscribed on the side of our Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. The phrase seems to mock those who don’t have the resources to secure that equality; those like Manny Babbitt and his family, and those like Gregory Bryant-Bey, who is scheduled to die Wednesday under Ohio’s unequal justice.

Travis Schulze is a senior in international relations. He can be reached at [email protected].