In a message dated 6/20/00 4:50:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> This controversy has been intensified by the most far-
>  reaching study ever on the death penalty. It was conducted
>  by a group of lawyers and criminologists at Columbia
>  University, led by Professor James S. Liebman.
>
>  The study, just released, focused on 5,760 appeals in
>  capital-punishment cases from 1973, when the death penalty
>  was reinstated, until 1995.
>
>  It found that more than two-thirds of those verdicts, or 68
>  percent, were overturned due to flaws and errors within the
>  criminal-justice system.

    To put things in perspective, Liebman is an anti- capital punishment
activist, so his conclusions would automatically be suspect when viewed by a
disinterested observer, and the fact that there have been so many reversals
with absolutely no evidence of an innocent person being executed would
indicate that the system is actually working.  As to the claim that
non-whites are being "targeted" for the death penalty because they represent
a significant percentage of those person on death row, may have something to
do with the fact that they commit murder out of all proportion to their
percentage of the general population.
Yours,
Issodhos