Sentencing Project, in 1995, found that on an average day in America, one out of three African-American men aged 20-29 was either in prison or jail, on probation or parole (Donziger). These findings indicate that minorities are very obviously not given equal treatment in the criminal justice system.There are several groups who argue that the death penalty is administered in disproportionately higher frequency on the poor, who cannot afford qualified counsel, and minorities, who are widely represented on death row (Facts on file). These groups include some of the following: American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and the Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. In 1972, the Supreme Court found that the methods and system of capital punishment were laden with discrimination. The Court then struck down all the death penalty laws existing in the 32 states which had allowed the death penalty. (Facts on file) The Supreme Court re-examined the new laws developed by each state and decided to reinstate some practical conditions: one being the bifurcated trial method developed in Georgia. Since that time, the Federal government and each states government has been responsible for examining the capital punishment system.Hutchinson, Death Penalty, 7Texas Death Row:While forty states provide for capital punishment, nowhere has it been embraced as enthusiastically as in Texas, with a reported 90 percent public approval ratefully one-third of all executions in the United States [take place in Texas] (Donovan, 8). The distinctive difference in executing those members of the lower class has been seen in Texas just like the rest of the United States. The men of Death Row are disproportionately poor, uneducated, and African-American compared to the rest of the population (although in absolute numbers, the majority is Caucasian) (Donovan, 15). This is stating that although the majority of men on death row are white, compared to the ov...
