New data about mistreatment of blacks: another black eye for death penalty
What a surprise (and an honor!) when an activist organist in England contacted me recently. Reprieve, a human rights group that opposes the death penalty, had heard of my personal experience in witnessing an execution. The resulting interview, with a panel of researchers in another country via Zoom, was most interesting! My feelings about the death penalty are well known, and I have posted numerous essays on this website regarding my 2007 experience in witnessing the execution of a friend and client. But now about the new research. The lengthy, in-depth report by Reprieve, made major news this week in the United States, both in the New York Times and National Public Radio! The focus was on botched executions, and there was one statistic in particular that wasn’t anticipated. The research found, among other things, that Black people had 220% higher odds of suffering a botched lethal injection execution than white people! That new insight just adds another way Black