Before I move on to the issues already mentioned I would like to provide a little history on capital punishment. England, for instance, at one point had 250 capital crimes from bread snatching to murder. Judges knew that their role was to keep order in a society facing food shortages during heir early stages of development to capitalism. History shows that governments use capital punishment as means to prevent crime, as a means of retribution, or revenge. Aside from deterence factors and retribution, governments see capital punishment as a proportional punishment. Life for life. The death penalty was seen as both dramatic and symbolic. Absolute punishment, like capital punishment, demands absolute certaintly of equality and fairness in treatment and correct conviction, which is

the Death Penalty in America, 97, 276.

source of bad convictions is lousy lawyering for the defense. Judges often assign capital cases to inexperienced or marginally talented attorneys. Alabama pays attorneys just $20.00 and hour up to a cap of a $1,000 to prepare for a capital trial, and $40.00 and hour to argue it. One Texas lawyer delivered a 26-word statment at sentencing. 'You are an extremely intelligent jury. You've got that man's life in your hands. You can take it or leave it. That is all I have to say.' His client was executed in 1992." Is that competent legal representation? I think not. So we can see were people are being butchered because they are unable to afford an attorney with the experience to and the incentive to provide the adequate representation.

In showing the death penalty to be unjust and wrong we must consider the world in which we live. We live in a world of bias and discrimination. Whether the discrimination is due to ethnicity, age, apprearance, or history, we must of course realized that people do act discriminatory. This discrimination we could all agree is wrong and ignorant, especially when bias is involved with capital cases. Keith Harris and Derrel Cheatwood agree by providing a specific example of when a bias entered the court room

of a capital case. "Prosecutions realted to the Anti-Drug Act of 1980 showed that 89% of the capital prosecutions were of African-Americans or Mexican-Americans. Futhermore, three-quarters of those convicted of participation in a drug enterprise under the general provisions of S (sections) 848 have been white and only about 24% of the defendants

2.) Keith Harris and Derrel Cheatwood

Prof. , Geog., U MD and Prof., Crim. Justice, UT-SA

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Some common words found in the essay are:
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