Reply #55: That conclusion doesn't follow from the facts. [View All]

If all you're interested in are final numbers, out of a population that's 12-13% black, would we expect about 42% of the death penalties to be issued to blacks?

It's much more complicated than that, and the numerous single-issue/single-factor studies are usually simplistic. There's likely to be some racism involved, but there's also a far higher murder rate among the black population overall. If all the various sociologists and criminologists can't do a reasoned and dispassionate analysis, then I certainly can't sort it out--at least not well enough to say that there's no racism reflected in the numbers. (Then there's the flip side, the passionate advocates, some of which will freely admit that there's a higher murder rate, but mostly when calling for assistance, and some of which deny it because it feeds stereotypes.)