Death penalty decline in US may keep more black inmates alive

Death penalty decline in US may keep more black inmates alive

A wind of change is sweeping across the United States of America. For the first time "death sentences dropped":http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race-and-death-penalty to below a 100 in a single year, which is the lowest since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, leading some death penalty critics to say this will keep more black inmates alive. These latest stats are a huge milestone for anti-capital punishment advocates who condemn the practice on moral and fiscal grounds, also pointing to the racial and class disparities inherent in the way death penalties are applied in the United States. theGrio: From Troy Davis to Mumia - Have we turned a corner on the death penalty? Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), compiled the data. He told theGrio there is growing unease about unfairness, "the drop is indicative of the deep concern about the accuracy of the death penalty." "Jurors are hesitant to impose an irreparable punishment, which has had reverberations throughout the system' Dieter says. "Judges are granting additional appeals, governors are granting stay of execution and clemency, legislators are abolishing or restricting the death penalty and even the US Supreme Court is applying more restrictions on the death penalty." Recent media coverage of the "Troy Davis":http://www.thegrio.com/news/did-troy-davis-change-death-penalty-opinions.php case -- an African-American Georgia inmate -- has also helped shape public opinion and shed light on a practice, which opponents say is riddled with doubt. "There was strong evidence of his innocence but the system failed," says "David A. Love":http://www.thegrio.com/author/david-a-love-1/, a Grio contributor and executive director of "Witness to Innocence":http://witnesstoinnocence.org/, a national organization that supports exonerated former death row survivors, mainly African-Americans, and their families. Several key witnesses changed their testimony against Davis, yet despite this, amidst national outcry, he was still executed, Love says. Executions, nevertheless, have also been steadily declining with 43 in 2011, representing a 56 percent drop since 1999. Developments in various states illustrate the growing discomfort, for example, in January the Illinois legislature voted to repeal the death penalty, replacing it with a sentence of life without parole.