* December 1 - part 1

True to my word, today I would like to Blog Against Racism:

I was all pondering what, oh what, to write when it hit me: two days in a row now, when I have signed on to CNN.com the top story has been regarding upcoming executions. So, I figure (although it's nothing really new) a note about the racism that pervades capital punishment is worth reiteration.

"In 82% of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks."
- United States General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing, February 1990

In fact, since 1976, 206 Black persons have been executed for killing whites while only 12 whites have been executed for killing blacks.

An interesting statistic to note regarding a "jury of our peers": More than 20% of black defendants who have been executed were convicted by all-white juries.

We are quickly approaching the 1000th execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Recently the 122nd person was released from death row. So, in > 10% of cases we (as a society) have admitted to being wrong... which makes me think there must be more innocent people that were not released.

Maybe I'm bringing my Christian bias into this, but it seems that even if we accept capital punishment as a valid deterant and/or bit of retributive justice (which I don't) it is far from just to risk sacrificing the innocent to "punish" the guilty. To bring it back to race, especially if we know that we have biases that still play a part in who we put on death row.

All statistics taken from information on the Death Penalty Information Center website. There is so much info there - lots of graphs and articles and stuff... you should totally check it out.