The racial bias of the US death penalty | David A Love | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: The application of the US death penalty is unfair, arbitrary and racially biased. Whether a defendant receives a death sentence depends not on the merits of the case, so much as on his or her skin colour – and the race of the victim – and the county in which the murder case was prosecuted. Two recent news items in the US provide some illustrative context.
First, the issue of bias: the North Carolina Senate recently approved Senate Bill 9, a measure that would repeal the state's Racial Justice Act. The act, signed into law by Governor Bev Purdue in 2009, allows inmates to challenge their death sentences through statistical evidence of racial bias, including the exclusion of blacks from juries. Republican lawmakers and prosecutors opposed the law.
