"The death penalty is a noxious and racist practice. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, of more than 3,300 people on death row in the U.S., over 41 percent are African-American-more than three times their representation in the general population."

I was with her till this. Racist? Not likely if you simply look at the statistics of who commits a majority of violent crimes and murders and wgho they commit them on. This kind of argument is beneath Amy. I am surprised at her.

Though I would say that there is certainly some racism involved in death sentences.

"Racist? Not likely if you simply look at the statistics of who commits a majority of violent crimes and murders and who they commit them on. This kind of argument is beneath Amy. I am surprised at her.

Though I would say that there is certainly some racism involved in death sentences."

Of course it's racist. Did you not read the article? 41% of people on death row are black in a general population less than 13% black? (Black people commit less than a quarter of the violent crime in society, so the numbers still don't add up).

As for statistics: white people both commit the majority of violent crime and are the most common victims of violent crime in the US (not surprisingly, in a largely-white society). Black people are more likely to be victimized by whites than random probability would suggest, vis vis white people being victimized by blacks, by the way. Most victims of violent crime committed by blacks are other blacks.

Black people commit more violent crime per capita than whites, but for socio-economic reasons, not race; blacks and whites of the same social class commit crime at the same rate. For discussion and explanation, see Tim Wise's excellent article here: http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/colorofdeception.html.

Blacks are also far more likely to be sentenced to death for the same crimes than whites (by a huge margin), so yes, there is a lot of racism involved in the application of death sentences.

Your argument is beneath any non-racist, so perhaps you'd like to reconsider your position. It's no surprise that Amy's passion and logic are flawless here, as they always are.

I called several Georgia offices. So did some of my colleagues. Some of my students took an interest and called as well. Let's hope that sanity prevails.

Sioux Rose

JCLIENTELE: As usual, good reasoning and apt posting.

I'll know I'm living in a just society when in a case like this I see serious criminal charges against the police officers that coerced and intimidated testimony.

It seems like several charges can be found. From obstruction of justice all the way up to attempted murder. After all, if false testimony was coerced and it could lead to the possible execution of an innocent man, isn't that a case of attempted murder?

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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"

www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com

Thou shall not frickin kill!!!

This is about much more than the death penalty. Carter's quote about this demonstrating serious flaws in capital punishment misses the point altogether that if 7 of 9 key witnesses recanted their testimony, Davis shouldn't even be in jail.

I've heard that in Europe there are actually penalties for corrupt police and prosecutors. Often the innocent are convicted here in this country because of prosecutorial misconduct, suppressing evidence, police perjury, courts using unreliable testimony of criminals in jail who are bribed with leniency, doctored forensics, etc.

Any case resulting in exoneration implies that the police and prosecutors violated the law--and nothing ever happens to them as a result.

Most CEO's of the companies we are bailing out are white. So are the politicians who support war crimes. So who are the biggest criminals in this country?

Even if Troy Davis is found to be completely innocent, and in all probability, he will, if given a fair trial - and - he is freed immediately, Troy Davis will already have suffered the terrible pain of mental torture.

The question is: what shall we do about it? Will we demand retribution from the perpetrators of his unjust incarceration and torture? Will we admonish the over-zealous prosecutor? Fine and imprison those who perjured themselves on the stand?

None of the above should happen. We should once and for all suspend the barbaric practice of the death penalty. For centuries the death penalty has been used to satisfy some perverse sense of revenge by people who are, in reality no better than those they to condemn to death.

There are many people who have angered me in the past sixty years. Some of those people have committed grave injustices. Perhaps if not given twelve seconds to think about it, I too might have even wanted those people to die. Thank God I was always given more than twelve seconds to think about it. In no case would I condemn to death anyone, if given time to think about it.

I've no doubt that in every death penalty case, many people in positions of power were given more than twelve seconds to think about killing another human being, having the same creator as them.

I am trying very hard to understand how one human being can kill another in such a cold-blooded, non-compassionate way.

Let us all hope that we all receive more mercy than we have given others.