"At yearend 2004 there were 3,218 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,220 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 463 white male inmates per 100,000 white males". - U.S. Department of 'Justice'

The normally dodgy Scotsman newspaper had an excellent front-page on rape last week, asking if a 4% conviction rate really meant we thought 96% of the women are liars or if it was the judiciary was just too male.

From childhood Tookie was seven times more likely to end up in a US prison simply for being born black, and since 'all men are created equal' the US justice department figures should it's own bias.

The vast majority of deaths caused by LA gang culture occur in El Salvador and Honduras. They could have exiled Tookie there - if he had reformed then he might have stopped the violence there and if he hadn't reformed, he wouldn't be the first or the worst US killer the US had sent there.

"Six percent in college
from livin on the block
twenty five percent in prison
the school of hard knocks
fifty percent in poverty
is livin on the rocks
five hundred brothas on a death row box

The punishment is capital
for those who lack in capital
because a public defender
can't remember the last time
that a brother wasn't treated like an animal."

If redeemed peacemaker Stanley Williams can be executed legally by the state, when doubt surrounds his conviction, how can we expect the lawless 'Swords of Right' to show mercy to kidnapped Christian peacemaker, Mr Kemble, in Iraq? Shouldn't we lead by example? Or we are no different to terrorists.

even sadder for the child he shot in the face with a shot gun
 http://www.ogrish.com/archives/2005/december/ogrish-dot-com-tookie_victim2.jpg
oh dear quickly the truth has been posted
censor it

The debate about judicial executions is always framed by the pro-execution side as "he was guilty, so anyone against the death penalty must think he's innocent".

"Justice for the innocent victims!" also gets yelled a lot.

If a person's been found guilty of murder, then they should get a life sentence with no parole. For a young person, spending the rest of their life in jail will be far worse than a quick death.

The US experience proves that the death penalty isn't a deterrent to crime: look at the sky-high murder rate there.

Justice hasn't been better served by killing the guilty man, and all his work against gang violence will now come to an end. The lesson learned by the kids thinking of joining the gangs is that murder is acceptable, if the murderer is powerful enough.

So everybody's the loser, this time. Again.

More info:
 http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
 http://www.derechos.org/dp/
 http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-index-eng
 http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm