Based on the information from this site, Florida executed a man by the name of Willie Darden for a crime he couldn't have committed. The conviction was based on a gun that could no way be traced to Willie. Key witnesses were not allowed to testify in the case. The person who identified Willie in a line up admitted that all blacks looked alike to her. Willie was the only black person in the line up. Supreme Court Justice Blackmun noted. "If ever a man received an unfair trial, Darden did." Also according to this site, African-Americans make up half the death row populations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Delaware, Mississippi, and Virginia. Over two-thirds of the people on death row in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Louisiana. More than 3 out of four people waiting to be executed in Federal and U.S. Military prisons are African-American. And, 90% of the people U.S. Government prosecutors seek to execute are Black or Latino.
During my research through the Internet, I came across, The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney: The Death penalty (www.clarkprosecutor.org). This website has information on executions from 1977. According to this site 35.8% of the people executed were black males, and, that they make up 42.9% of people on death row. To help support this information I continued my search. To help support the fact that the death penalty is in fact racists, I found information on the website www.thegully.com that stated African Americans are 12 percent of the U.S. population, but are 43 percent of prisoners on death row. Although Blacks constitute 50 percent of all murder victims, 83 percent of the victims in death penalty cases are white. Also, since 1976 only ten executions involved a white defendant who had killed a Black victim.
The final source used in my research that I will discuss is The History of the Death Penalty, (www.deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu,) which provides a vast amount of information on the subject of deterrence, execution of innocent defendants, and discrimination.
