ity of the American public would favor the death penalty over other alternatives. By law it is required that the trial and sentencing of the accused must be conducted with the utmost fairness, especially when incorporating the irreversible sanction of the death penalty. It has been noted that courts have sentenced some criminals to prisons while putting others to death, which clearly demonstrates uncertainly, racial prejudices, and extreme unfairness. In his classic American Dilemma (1940) Gunnar Myrdal reported that "the South makes the widest application of the death penalty", and sadly " Negro criminals are in for much more than their share of the executions" (Warner). Recently a study of the death penalty showed that the current capital punishment system is an outgrowth of the racist "legacy of slavery" (NCADP). Between 1930 and 1996, 4,220 prisoners were executed and more than half were black. (Cite) A disproportionately large number of African Americans have always occupied the nation's death row (Dieter 144). During the past century, blacks were more often executed for what were considered less-than-capital offenses for white criminals, such as rape and burglary (Dieter 145). A large percentage of the blacks who were executed were juveniles, and the number of executions without having one's conviction reviewed by a higher court was inflated for African Americans (NCADP). In recent years, there has been wide belief that racial discrimination is a thing of the past. However, since the renewal of capital punishment in the mis-1970s approximately half of the death row population, at any given time, has been black (Smart). When those under the death sentence are examined more closely, it is apparent race is a factor after all. A statistical study of racial discrimination in capital cases in Georgia, showed that those convicted of killing a white person were more likely to receive the death penalty in all indicted cases. Fu...
