stances should meet with the same punishment, however the justice system is not consistent. Statistics show that a black man who kills a white person is 11 times more likely to receive the death penalty than a white man who kills a black person. And blacks who kill blacks have even less to worry about. It's almost like we kind of say, "Oh, well, he needed killing anyhow." (NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund)In Texas in 1991, blacks made up 12 percent of the population, but 48 percent of the prison population and 55.5 percent of those on death row were black. (NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund). Wrongful Conviction:The fourth debate is the danger of mistake. In the past, there were many people wrongfully executed for crimes that they did not commit all in the name of justice. It has happened that after the execution of the alleged guilty party, the real murderer confessed to elevate his guilty conscience."No matter how careful courts are, the possibility of perjured testimony, mistaken honest testimony, and human error remain all too real. We have no way of judging how many innocent persons have been executed, but we can be certain there were some." --J. Marshall (see appendix d)(Bailey, 1994, 38)The unique thing about the death penalty is that it is final and irreversible. Since 1970, 77 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. Researchers Radelet & Bedau found 23 cases since 1900 where innocent people were executed, and the numbers are growing. With stories of people like Rolando Cruz, released after 10 years on Illinois's death row, despite the fact that another man had confessed to the crime shortly after his conviction; and Ricardo Aldape Guerra, who returned to Mexico after 15 years on Texas's death row because of a prosecution that a federal judge called outrageous and designed to simply achieve another notch on the prosecutor's guns. (Death Penalty Information Center)Now, there are safeg...
