This, of course, is nothing new. In the 1980s I helped run an Amnesty International campaign in my high school to block the death penalty because it was racist. At the time there was a case before the Supreme Court, but it got overturned…
Seven of the eight people facing serious execution dates in June are African American or Latino, demonstrating unfair bias in the way the death penalty is applied, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said today.
…”The death penalty is biased in two ways when it comes to race,” said Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. “First, blacks make up 43 percent of death row population, but only 13 percent of the U.S. population generally. Second, and more significantly, the race of the victim determines who lives and who dies. Of those executed since 1976, 81 percent were convicted of killing white victims. 19 percent were convicted of killing minority victims.”
Thanks to Talk Left for the quote!
