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Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice and the Death Penalty

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Jesse Jackson has written a wonderful argument against the use of the death penalty. It is too bad that most of those who need convincing will not read this, and those who do will disregard all information or logic to maintain their support for the death penalty and their demonizing of its victims. Jackson provides interesting tidbits of information. For example, when death penalty supporters pointed out a decrease in murder in the two weeks following the first execution after the Supreme Court's moritorium, Jackson replied that the decrease occured only in the Eastern states, and was due to major blizzards at the time.

Jackson points out what should be obvious to everyone, that black persons and poor persons are more likely to get the death penalty than the white or rich. The representation of poor defendants in court has been terrible. Jury selection may exclude persons who oppose the death penalty. Since many opponents base their opposition on concern about executing an innocent, while many supporters are wilfully blind about the possibility of a person's innocence; that means death penalty juries are more likely to convict on the flimsiest of evidence.

Jackson discusses the Ehrlich study of 1975, the study most prominently cited to ostensibly show a crime-reduction effect of the death penalty. He discussed various criticisms, and pointed out that no other study has repeated the results, but he left out the most damning indictment of Ehrlich's study: the strong dependence of the results on the last year of the study. (Finkelstein and Levin, Staticstics for Lawyers (1990) pp. 446 and 534) If the final year analyzed was 1969, 1968, or 1967, the result was about eight murders reduced per execution. If 1966, seven murders reduced. If 1965, 4.5 murders reduced. If 1964, 1.5 murders reduced. If the study ended earlier in the 1960s, the results would have been two and eight murders INCREASED for each execution.

That kind of result was predictable from Ehrlich's use of logarithms of the numbers of executions. In the years 1965 - 1969, there were seven, one, two, zero, and zero executions. Earlier years had double-digit or triple-digit numbers of executions. Using logarithms strongly emphasizes lower numbers over higher numbers. (Decreasing from 200 to 100 has the same effect of decreasing from 2 to 1.) In any case, studies in which the results vary with endpoint are worthless.

I believe that the Ehrlich study illustrates a fundamental difference between physical science and other fields of study, such as economics or law. In the sciences, the mathematical error might have been caught by peer review. Even if the study got by peer review, once the error was exposed, the consensus would be to dismiss the study and forget about it except as an example of bad science. But in law and politics, the trend has been to cite the study prominantly and then possibly cite

criticism of the study, letting the reader decide for himself. Supporters and opponents take sides based on their proclivities and ignore logic from the other side.

In discussing public opinion regarding the death penalty, Jackson tells of a faction of death-penalty supporters who dig in and retrench whcn confronted with negative facts on the death penalty. That faction truly does exist. Some can be found on the newsgroup alt.activism.death-penalty, where they persistently and wilfully disregard evidence of innocent persons being executed, or that execution doesn't deter murder. These pro-death-penalty persons are little more than malicious know-nothings.

I saw one post (in 1994) that replied to an article posted about the innocence of Roger Coleman, that summarized the article as something like, "Account of Coleman's brutal murder of Wanda McCoy deleted." Another post around the same time responded to statistics showing a drop in murders after Canada

eliminated the death penalty, and amazingly asserted that the drop would have been greater had Canada not eliminated the death penalty. There was absolutely no basis for such an assertion in the statistics.

In fact, when the governor of Illinois issued a moritorium on executions, because of too many innocents having been convicted, our estimed Texas governor and future Republican presidential nominee, George W. Bush, not only refused to join the moritorium, but went ahead to execute an innocent man March 1st, Odell Barnes.

For all you readers who strongly support the death penalty, I urge you to read this book. Never have I seen or heard such a marvelous argument against the immorality inherent in the death penalty. Also, after you have read this book, feel free to e-mail me so we can chat about it.

Jesse Jackson does a wonderful job of not only appealing to the emotions of the readers, but to stun with great statistics to support the truth that the phrase 'justice system' is, in fact, an oxymoron. Rev. Jesse Jackson reflects accurately the need for reform, and even provides names and addresses of a great number of organizations nation-wide so that readers can get involved to fight the injustices of the criminal justice system. It is not only a great book for those who are at all interested the criminal justice system, but those who are interested in politics, race-relations, and history. He takes a broader look at the death penalty than most of the other articles and in-depth analyses that I've read. I would recommend this book to anyone who is at all interested in learning the truth about race-relations in the United States.

Having read this book cover to cover twice, Jesse Jackson is still up to the same old political tricks (e.g. blame America for people's choices). There are many better reasoned and articulated books on the death penalty than this, don't waste your time!

If you want to read an excellent NONFICTION book about Jesse Jackson, read "Shakedown : Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson" by Kenneth R. Timmerman.