Being Black is Dangerous

This is a comment on the death penalty. I started out years ago supporting it believing in the safety of the criminal justice system. Over the years I have seen over and over innocent men, almost all black, being incarcerated and then years later exonerated. We don't know how many innocent people have been executed or how many remain behind bars. We do know that hundreds have been railroaded and victimized because they were black and therefore easier to convict. What a travesty.

Imagine being innocent of a murder and being convicted and incarcerated. I have to call that torture. In America. Torture. Legal.

Would it be better to be innocent and executed? Ahh. That I don't know. In this country executions often take 15, 2o or more years to be carried out. That surely is torture as well.

America has the highest rate of incarceration (1) in the world and the US is currently fifth in the world for executions (2). What the hell is going on here? Blacks are far more likely to get the death penalty than whites. Why? I think I know the answer to that but my opinion is informed by emotion and many but diffuse sources.

What to do? Get rid of the death penalty. Period. It costs more to execute people than incarcerate them. And a fringe benefit would be the survival of innocents and hopefully the ultimate exoneration of them. Better yet why not a system that doesn't allow the conviction of innocents. Currently prosecutors cannot be themselves prosecuted for wrongful prosecution. Now don't go off half-cocked here. If honest mistakes are made in the prosecution of an innocent there should be no penalty for the prosecutor. That tastes bad but I can understand it. Today a case was discussed on NPR that outlined the purposeful framing of, you got it, black men. Police and prosecutors were in on the frame, got convictions and moved on with their lives. Two men spent 25 years in prison before being exonerated by the "discovery"of evidence hidden by the police and prosecutor that absolutely showed that they were framed. The supreme court is now going to decide if the prosecutors and police can be sued for this. Sued? Charge the bastards and jail them. Immunity for framing? Crap.

1 http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment
3 http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race-death-row-inmates-executed-1976
4 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120069519
Photo: www.deadanarchists.org/Pentecost/murder.html