In 1994, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun stated, "Even under the most sophisticated death penalty statutes, race continues to play a major role in determining who will live and who will die."

The same holds true today in Texas where the death penalty is clearly tainted with racism. Currently, about 40% of the prisoners on death row in Texas are African-American, versus 12% in the general population. This fact alone should be enough reason to abolish this heinous practice. Just as the United States took a monumental step forward in the 1800s by abolishing slavery, we should take another monumental step forward at the beginning of this century by abolishing the death penalty for all time.

A book titled "The Rope, the Chair and the Needle" by Marquart, Ekland-Olson and Sorensen was published in 1994. This book describes how lynchings were used to keep African-Americans "in their place" in the early history of Texas. When the execution chamber in Huntsville was started up in 1924, five black men were electrocuted on the same day!

However, the death penalty is not a racist practice that existed just in the past. Marquart and company conclude that racism still exists in the application of the death penalty today. It rears its ugly head primarily in the initial stages of criminal proceedings when the local district attorney decides whether or not to seek death.

The Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. stated in a 1998 report that, in 96% of the studies of race and the death penalty in major death penalty states, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. The report also pointed out that 98% of the district attorneys in the USA are white and only 1% are African-American.

As a civilized society we should strive to become the best we can be. The death penalty is not only tainted with racism, it is a false solution to crime that is totally unnecessary. We do not need to take life for life. Society can be protected by long-term incarceration of dangerous criminals.

We should abolish the death penalty and we should do it now!