Boomy, racial prejudice in Death Penalty cases revisited

[Rooster]

The Justice Department study (http://www.usdoj.gov/dag/pubdoc/deathpenaltystudy.htm), authorized by Attorney General Janet Reno and conducted mainly under the Clinton administration, shows that in 973 potential capital cases the Reno Justice Department (including U.S. attorneys who operate at the state level) sought the death penalty for 27 percent of whites, 17 percent of blacks, and 9 percent of Hispanics. The numbers show that federal authorities seek death for white defendants more than for non-whites, but that still doesn't satisfy the critics.

In a hearing last week, Sen. Russell Feingold (http://www.senate.gov/~feingold/issuearea/deathpenalty.html) of Wisconsin demanded of Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, "How did we wind up with 90 percent of the people on death row minorities?" The question illustrates what's wrong with how the critics think about the death penalty and its application.

Sen. Feingold might as well ask, "How did we wind up with so many more men than women on death row?" The answer is that many more men than women commit capital crimes. The same answer probably explains why non-whites are over-represented in the death house as well.
Section II.b of the DoJ link supports this.

[Allison]

FWI, that study was on the Federal death penalty system and is a small sampling of the total system.

As an example, as of last month, there were 29 people awaiting federal execution. As of January this year, there were 3503 people awaiting state execution. Since 1929, only 37 people have been executed at the federal level. There were twice that many at the state level in 2003 alone.

I'm not saying that report doesn't have merit. It does, at the federal level. But it doesn't say anything about the majority of the death penalty cases in this country.

[Boom]

What she said.