Texas and the Death Penalty-In Depth

In my article entitled, Death Penalty Problem, I explained the author Goodman's views on the death penalty. I do not agree with the death penalty, especially after findings that the procedure is botched, but I would like to go more in depth about the death penalty and clarify exactly why I am sure it is a horrible procedure, despite the botched methods being used.

Some general facts about the death penalty are, there were 74 executions carried out in 1997 alone, and over half (37) happened to occur in Texas. Between 1977 and 1997, the USA put 432 prisoners to death, and over a third of those were in Texas alone. Per the previous article I wrote, I explained that Texas has now put on suspension all death penalty sentences until after the Supreme Court makes its decision on the use of lethal injection as the method. It has also been found, that there is a racial bias among prisoners sentenced to the death penalty. For example, although nearly half of all murder victims are black, 82.62 per cent of those executed nationwide were convicted of the murder of a white.A study conducted for the Dallas Times Herald in the mid-1980s showed that the killer of a white was anything up to 10 times more likely to receive a death sentence than the killer of a black victim. Of the 144 prisoners executed up to the end of 1997, 127 (88 percent) were executed for the murder of a white victim. Yet approximately 58 percent of murder victims in Texas are from ethnic minorities.

These numbers alone do not add up. The judicial system is too biased, as proven above, to administer a punishment as permanent as death with all of the biases and human errors that exist. The whole purpose of the judicial system is to provide equal justice and liberty for every US citizen, but so far, it has shown to do just the opposite. In an ideal world, minorities and majorities would be equally executed depending on the severity of the crime committed, but our country has just not gotten to that place. Until then, innocent people who may just have been at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong skin color are being murdered under the name of justice, and Texas is at the forefront of it all. Thanks to the Supreme Court, Texas has ceased using the death penalty for now, but what happens when a fool-proof technology is found that eliminates the error involved with lethal injections. From the trend, it looks like Texas will be right back at the forefront.

To top it all of, racial minorities are over represented on Texas death row. As of Jan 1, 1998, Texas' death row comprised 436 men (171 white, 173 black and 89 Hispanic, including 11 Mexican nationals and three others) and six women (four white and two black): a total of 442. Is it possible that Texas is too eager to execute minorities due to an underlying current of racism? I will leave that for you to decide.

To read more about Texas and the death penalty go to http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510101998