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This TED talk talks about the inmates on people on death row, and the death penalty. He tells a particular story on his client who was executed.

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David R. Dow: Lessons from death row inmates

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What happens before a murder? In looking for ways to reduce death penalty cases, David R. Dow realized that a surprising number of death row inmates had similar biographies. In this talk he proposes a bold plan, one that prevents murders in the first place.

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The national coalition to abolish the death penalty created a map of the U.S that shows the number of executions, innocent people freed from death row, and how many are on death row currently.

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National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

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National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

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This article talks about how the color of your skin plays a role in deciding who receives the death penalty.

¨The color of a defendant and victim's skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America.¨ (¨Race and the Death Penalty¨)

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The color of a defendant and victim's skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America. People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43 % of total executions since 1976 and 55 % of those currently awaiting execution. A moratorium of the death penalty is necessary to address the blatant prejudice in our application of the death penalty.

The jurisdictions with the highest percentages of minorities on its death row:

U.S. Military (86%)
Colorado (80%)
U.S. Government (77%)
Louisiana (72%)
Pennsylvania (70%)

While white victims account for approximately one-half of all murder victims, 80% of all Capital cases involve white victims. Furthermore, as of October 2002, 12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black, compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims.

For many years reports from around the country have found that a pervasive racial prejudice in the application of the death penalty exists.

In January 2003, researchers at the University of Maryland concluded in a study commissioned by the Maryland Governor that defendants are much more likely to be sentenced to death if they have killed a white person. Urgent: Maryland residents can take action to send a free fax to their state legislators about a pending death penalty bill!

In August 2001, the New Jersey Supreme Court released a report which also found that the state's death penalty law is more likely to proceed against defendants who kill white victims.

In April 2001, researchers from the University of North Carolina released a study of all homicide cases in North Carolina between 1993 and 1997. The study found that the odds of getting a death sentence increased three and a half times if the victim was white rather than black.

Supreme Court Decisions on Race and the Death Penalty Miller-El v. Cockrell

In the 2003 Supreme Court case Miller-El v. Cockrell, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor that Miller-El should have been given the opportunity to prove that his death sentence was the result of discriminatory jury practices. Such practices included the so called ""Texas shuffle"" to limit or eliminate African American jurors. Other practices included disparate questioning of potential jurors based on race, and a training memo instructing prosecutors on ways to skew juries based on race.
McClesky v. Kemp
In the 1987 Supreme Court case McClesky v. Kemp, counsel on behalf of death row prisoner Warren McClesky argued that death penalty sentences in Georgia were racially biased related to the race of the victim. The court ruled against McClesky who was executed by electrocution in 1991, ruling that racial disparities in the death penalty were not a violation of one's Constitutional right of "equal protection of the law."
Batson v. Kentucky
In this 1977 case the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors may not use race as a factor in eliminating potential jurors from the jury pool. Likewise, a former Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, wrote explicit directions to his prosecutors on how to strike African-Americans from juries, without violating the Supreme Court's ruling.
Legislation
In 1998, Kentucky became the first death penalty state to pass the Racial Justice Act, a law that prohibits the death penalty from being sought on the basis of race. Following this victory, Racial Justice Act legislation was introduced, but was not passed, in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nebraska, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

In 1997, David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth examined the death penalty rates among all death eligible defendants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between the years of 1983 and 1993. The results of their study proved that the odds of receiving the death penalty in Philadelphia increased by 38% when the accused was black.

Nationwide, a 1990 General Accounting Office (GAO) report reviewed numerous studies of patterns of racial discrimination in death penalty sentencing. Their review found that for homicides committed under otherwise similar circumstances, and where defendants had similar criminal histories, a defendant was several times more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim was white than if his victim was African American.

University of Iowa law professor David Baldus found that during the 1980s prosecutors in Georgia sought the death penalty for 70 % of black defendants with white victims, but for only 15% of white defendants with black victims.

Prosecutors have unfettered discretion in deciding which cases become capital cases, seeking the death penalty in approximately 1 percent of all capital eligible cases. Notably among the 38 states that allow the death penalty, approximately 98% of the prosecutors are white.

In the Okmulgee Judicial District of Georgia, District Attorney Joseph Briley tried 33 capital cases between 1974 and 1994. Twenty-four of the cases were against black defendants. In cases in which the defendant was black and the victim was white, Briley used 96 out of his 103 jury challenges against African-Americans.

In addition, between 1983 and 1993 prosecutors in Philadelphia voted to remove 52% of potential black jurors while trying to remove only 23% of other potential jurors.

In the fall of 2000, The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released the results of an initial survey of federal death penalty prosecutions. The report shows that the federal death penalty, like its application in the states, is used disproportionately against people of color. Of the 18 prisoners currently on federal death row, 16 are either African-American, Hispanic or Asian. From 1995-2000, 80% of all the federal capital cases recommended by U.S. Attorneys to the Attorney General seeking the death penalty involved people of color. Even after review by the Attorney General, 72% of the cases approved for death penalty prosecution involved minority defendants.

The DOJ study also revealed the influence that the race of the victim has in determining potential capital cases. U.S. Attorneys recommended the death penalty in 36 % of the cases with black defendants and non-black victims, but only recommended the death penalty in 20 % of the cases with black defendants and black victims.

The DOJ study left many questions unanswered, prompting calls for a more thorough review. In June 2000, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that the follow-up review of 950 cases had shown no evidence of racial bias. These results are unreliable because they were not based on the total number of cases that prosecutors could have submitted to former Attorney General Janet Reno for review, but only on those that were actually submitted. Following hearings chaired by Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) on oversight of the federal death penalty in June 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft ordered the National Institute of Justice to undergo a study on the possibility of racial and geographic biases in the federal death penalty.

Since taking office two years ago, Ashcroft has overturned local U.S. district attorneys' decisions not to seek the death penalty 28 times, which is more than the number of "overrides" during Attorney General Janet Reno's tenure. Of these 28 ""overrides,"" two involved suspects who are white; 23 involved suspects who are black, Latino or Native American; and three involved suspects whose race could not be determined.

A systemic racial bias in the application of the death penalty exists at both the state and federal level. A moratorium on the death penalty is needed to address this miscarriage of justice.

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The color of a defendant and victim's skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America. People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43 % of total executions since 1976 and 55 % of those currently awaiting execution.

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Bill Quigley / AlterNet. "18 Examples of Racism in the Criminal Justice System." Alternet. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2016.

Heyns, Christof, and Juan Mendez. "Time to Kill the Federal Death Penalty." Wall Street Journal. 05 Nov. 2015: A.15. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.

Jacoby, Jeff. "When Murder Is Punished with Death, Fewer Criminals Will Murder." Boston Globe. 26 Aug. 2016: K.5. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.

Wolf, Richard, and Kevin Johnson. "Decades of Life Stolen from Men Facing Death." USA TODAY. 16 Sep. 2015: A.8. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.

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The death penalty, also known as capital punishment is when someone who has been convicted of a crime and is guilty is executed as a punishment. In many cases, the death penalty has been an issue because of racial discrimination. Depending on your race there will be different consequences as if someone is guilty or innocent, and their punishment. The death penalty was first established in the 18th century and continues on to the present. Not all states in the U.S use the death penalty, but more than half do.¨ Justice Breyer writes that the death penalty today "involves three fundamental constitutional defects: (1) serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in the application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological purpose." Perhaps that is why, he continues, "most places within the United States have abandoned its use."...Since 2007 seven U.S. states have abolished capital punishment, taking the number of states without a death penalty statute to 19 plus the District of Columbia. Nearly three-quarters have either abolished the death penalty or haven't carried out an execution in at least eight years.¨( Heynes). This shows the issues of the death penalty and how some states have chosen to not use it. Many issues can happen among the death penalty: wrongly convicted, the process, and race. The main one there is to talk about is its racial issues. The death penalty is unjust because of racial discrimination and how it is carried out.

Not only through the death penalty, there is racial discrimination, it also goes out throughout the entire criminal justice system. For example, the national academy of sciences found that blacks are more likely than whites to be incarcerated while awaiting trial. ¨Racism may well be the biggest crime in the criminal legal system. If present trends continue, 1 of every 4 African American males born this decade can expect to go to prison in his lifetime¨(Quigley). There are many more cases like this where race determines certain outcomes of situations involving the justice system in the U.S.

¨A man named Anthony Ray Hinton was on death row for about 30 years¨ (Richard). There was a gun found in his home and he was thought to have killed someone. It later turned out he didn't do anything nor commit any kind of crime. He was on death row for most of his life because of assumptions and discrimination towards him. Anthony later talked about that if he was a white male the circumstances would have been different.  ¨"Being on death row has taken so much from me as a human being," he says. "I spent 30 years on death row for something I didn't  do."      While a dramatic reduction in death  sentences has spared hundreds of defendants from the ultimate penalty, the  roughly 3,000 people on death row are avoiding the execution chamber largely as  a result of legal battles, political backlash, medical and moral debates over  execution methods--and new information that has led to 155 exonerations.¨ (Johnson). This shows how many people being on death row could actually be there for a crime they didn´t commit, and how it could affect their lives.

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One cold winter evening there was a meeting held between many intellectual people. There they discussed their opinions on a very controversial subject, the death penalty. There were a lot of members for it, and quite a few against it.

¨The death penalty shows that killing is okay, therefore it should not be used,¨ said one member.

Everyone at the meeting each said their opinions with evidence and reasoning to support it. One member who was for the death penalty said,

¨It would eliminate criminals permanently and it´s better for them to die quickly rather than rot in a jail cell for the rest of their lives.¨

Then another member argued that ¨killing is not the right thing to do; in fact, you cannot punish killing with killing.¨

The third member brought a whole new topic to the table and asked the question about who got into the death penalty and why. He brought up many reasons and evidence on how racial discrimination is relevant, and how people are on death row for factors that are not fit to the situation. This point brought up a whole new level of discussion that is still being discussed to this day. Racial discrimination within the justice system.

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Come on America Open your eyes

There are people on death row

For that we cannot justify

We cannot have become this low

The outcome is to be determined by race

Because history shows that's how it works

One look of the face and that's all it takes

Discrimination is at its worst

Some may be put to death

The death penalty is unfair

White males convicted are at its less

Many say it's wrong, they glare

This has ruined lives

Even though innocent is what they say

Many will not survive

They say do not kill

But then they go against their word

And they will go against their will

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This is a fact page on how many executions their have been, and statistics involving race.

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The death penalty is a punishment of execution administered to someone who has convicted an extreme crime.

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This is an video on a study of racial discrimination involving the death penalty.

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Study suggests racial discrimination in death penalty

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A new study shows that in murder cases of black men the accused is less likely to get the death penalty, compared to cases in which white men were murdered.

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The Death Penalty is unjust because of racial discrimination and how it's carried out.

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The Death Penalty is unjust because of racial discrimination and how it's carried out.