To: epicure who wrote (101843 ) 4/25/2005 4:28:36 PM From: epicure Respond to Throughout American history, the death penalty has fallen disproportionately on racial minorities. For example, since 1930 nearly 90% of those executed for the crime of rape in this country were African-Americans.[11] Currently, about 50% of those on the nation's death rows are from minority populations representing 20% of the country's population. Nearly 40% of those executed since 1976 have been black, even though blacks constitute only 12% of the population. And in almost every death penalty case, the race of the victim is white. (See Fig. 3). Last year alone, 89% of the death sentences carried out involved white victims, even though 50% of the homicides in this country have black victims.[13] Of the 229 executions that have occurred since the death penalty was reinstated, only one has involved a white defendant for the murder of a black person.
