Anti death penalty letter

Press Democrat ^

[rey]

Death sentencing EDITOR: One week ago, another recent Death Row inmate, Harold Wilson, was proven innocent by DNA evidence, and he was freed after 16 years of imprisonment in Pennsylvania. Imagine that 16 years hard time out of your life. It is imperative that all governors declare a moratorium on the death penalty now. In our society, the death penalty has been judicial lynching. It is relegated inordinately to the impoverished, underrepresented, undereducated people, usually men, of color. Far too often, harrowing stories of attorney inattention, police malfeasance, mishandled or disappeared evidence or rewarding lying witnesses come to light. Far too often, this information is unearthed only through relentless diligence of volunteer advocates studying crime details and court proceedings years later.

I've worked in California Corrections. Prisons are already wretched slave labor encampments over-packed with non-violent criminals. Their sentences are unreasonably long and their rehabilitation is never seriously intended. Mental illness is rampant and untreated. In fact, it appears, the revolving door is essential to prison design today. There's plenty of money to be made by some lucky sorts certain to hold political influence for guaranteed income.

I urge you to write your governor to impose a death penalty moratorium in California, for his peace of mind and our collective conscience.

DR. APRIL M. HURLEY

Santa Rosa

[DumpsterDiver]

Here's a couple of more sources:

Race of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976 [Execution information accurate as of November 18, 2005 following execution in North Carolina.]

RACE OF DEFENDANTS EXECUTED IN THE U.S. SINCE 1976

BLACK
336
34%
HISPANIC
6
36%
WHITE
576
58%
OTHER
22
2.3%

NOTE: The federal government counts some categories, such as Hispanics, as an ethnic group rather than a race. DPIC (Death Penalty Information Center) refers to all groups as races because the sources for much of our information use these categories.

CURRENT U.S. DEATH ROW POPULATION BY RACE

BLACK
1,432
41.7%
HISPANIC
350
10.4%
WHITE
1,553
45.5%
OTHER
80
2.3%

(Death Row Population Figures from NAACP-LDF "Death Row USA (Julyl 1, 2005)")

Source

Also see Bureau of Justice Statistics Capital Punishment Statistics
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm

[digger48]

Thanks. I was sure I'd heard the statistics didn't support their arguement.

[freedumb2003]

To be honest, blacks represent 12-14% of the population but are 45% of those on Death Row.

But if you bump up the figures to violent crimes by race I am sure you would find correlation.

The reason whites have been executed more is because everytime a black is ready to be fried, the usual race pimps come out of the woodwork and get it commuted.

Look At Tookie Wilson -- heck, he did it but he writes children's books so it is all OK now. The 4 people he killed (and countless others he and the Crips killed) really don't matter anymore.

[LauraleeBraswell]

The point is,that if a black man is on death row for killing another black man- then you can't call it racism.

[xenophiles]

...if a black man is on death row for killing another black man- then you can't call it racism.

Well... yes you can. It is possible (though I've seen no evidence of it) that racist judges sentence black murderers to death more readily than murderers of other colors. The race of the victim can't disprove this.

And let me reiterate: I haven't seen any evidence for a sensible connection between DNA exoneration and the death penalty or racism.

[George - the Other]

This coming Monday here in Maryland, they are planning to execute Wesley Eugene Baker, who shot a grandmother to death in a shopping mall in front of her two grand children, all for $8.00.

Witnesses described Baker and the other person in the getaway car, as laughing and giving each other "high-fives" as they drove away.