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Posted on 09/29/2002 3:33:00 PM PDT by Houmatt
Two Harris County legislators from historically black neighborhoods said Saturday that they will again push for a temporary moratorium on Texas executions when the Legislature convenes in January.
The vast majority of people on death row in Texas are African-American or Hispanic, said state Rep. Sylvester Turner, who is originally from Acres Homes and now chairs the House judiciary committee. The majority of those who have been executed also have been minority, he said.
"The issue boils down to access, representation and cost," Turner said.
"If you have the money, you have good representation and you may not end up on death row. If you don't have the money, you don't have good representation and you may look forward to the death penalty.
"That's inherently unfair."
Turner and fellow state Rep. Harold Dutton, who represents Fifth Ward, addressed the fifth biennial conference of the Just Beginning Foundation, an association of black federal judges.
Eighty black federal judges from 50 states attended the conference, which ends today and was co-hosted by U.S. District Judges Vanessa Gilmore and Kenneth Hoyt of Houston.
Of the nation's 795 federal judges, 110 are black, Gilmore said.
At a Saturday panel, the lack of minorities on the bench and other key criminal justice posts were cited as factors contributing to the skewed numbers of blacks and Hispanics sentenced to die.
"The death penalty is disproportionately applied to people of color," said E. Michael McCann, who is serving his 33rd year as the elected district attorney of Milwaukee County in Wisconsin.
McCann, who prosecuted notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, cited a study five years ago that showed 97.5 percent of prosecutors in states with the death penalty were white; only 1.2 percent were black, and 1.2 percent were Hispanic. In Texas, 137 district attorneys were white, 11 were Hispanic and none were black.
"And that's in a state that leads the country in executions," said McCann.
Since reinstituting the death penalty in 1976, Texas has executed 273 men and women, more than a third of the nation's state-sanctioned executions. On the brink of the new millennium, Texas put 40 people to death in a single year, breaking the record for the number of people executed by a state in one year.
A number of factors could curb executions. A recent Supreme Court decision held that the execution of the mentally retarded violated the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Another decision ruled that only juries, and not judges, can impose the death penalty.
Two years ago, Illinois Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions after 13 men on death row were found to have been wrongly convicted. A blue-ribbon panel appointed by Ryan to find out why innocent people are sentenced to die recently made 85 specific proposals aimed at fixing the state's criminal justice system.
In May, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening also suspended the death penalty because of doubts over its fairness.
"It's a matter of conscience," McCann said.
The Texas Legislature killed moratorium proposals during its last session, including one sponsored by Dutton, who will try again next year. Another possible route is eliminating the death penalty while instituting actual life imprisonment.
"There's still a lot of support for the death penalty in Texas, but the idea of life without parole is gaining ground," Turner said.
No, this boils down to pure racism on the part of the Rats. Fact is, the reason why there are more combined minorities on death row is because they are the ones committing the crimes.
Think I am kidding? Just turn on your TV.
These idiots are just criminal coddlers who seek only to thwart the will of the people in the name of skin color.
Sure. Just look at O.J. Simpson.
Life itself is unfair.
And these idiots aren't concerned about fairness. They just want the people they are championing to be able to rape and murder with impunity.
That ain't happening.
You left out frequency of crime. Blacks and hispanics commit crimes at a far greater rate per capita than whites. Which goes a long way toward explaining the preponderance of minorities on Death Row.
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/racial.htm
White: 150 or 33.2%
Black: 185 or 40.9%
Hispanic: 112 or 24.8%
Other: 5 or 1.1%
The facts speak for themselves. What a bunch of cry babies.
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