Above the Law
Does G.W. Bush feel he is above the law? That might explain why
he refuses to comment on his own "youthful indiscretions" with
cocaine -- which he does not deny occurred in his mid-20s. Somehow
it makes sense to him that his crimes should be ignored while the
crimes of indigent youths are prosecuted to the fullest extent of
the law.
With some regularity during his governorship G.W. Bush explained that
"as far as [he's] concerned, an innocent man has never been put to death while
he has been in office." He steadfastly refuses to explain why his
state is so much more trustworthy than others like Illinois, which
has recently abolished -- again -- the death penalty due to
numerous erroneous decisions that have come to light with the use
of DNA evidence.
Race and the death penalty
"Even under the most sophisticated death penalty
statutes, race continues to play a major role in determining who
shall live and who shall die."
Justice Blackmun, US Supreme Court, 1994
The history of the death penalty in the USA shows that it has been
applied in a racist manner and that any criminal justice system can
be vulnerable to personal or social prejudice. One of the 254
counties in Texas accounts for almost one-third of the state's
death row; 132 of the state's 437 condemned prisoners were
sentenced in Harris County (Jan. 1998). The race of the murder
victim appears to be a major factor in determining who is sentenced
to death. Blacks and whites in the USA are the victims of murder in
almost equal numbers, yet 82 per cent of prisoners executed since
1977 were convicted of the murder of a white person. Nationwide,
blacks are disproportionately represented on death row at both
state and federal level. Blacks make up just 12 per cent of the
country's population, but 42 per cent of the nation's condemned
prisoners. In early 1998, of the 26 people under federal sentence
of death (military and civilian), only five prisoners were white.
The overwhelming majority of district attorneys and other officials
who make the decision as to whether to seek the death penalty are
white. In 1998, of the 1,838 such officials in states with the
death penalty, 22 were black, and 22 were Latino. The remainder
were white.
Executing juvenile offenders
"Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes
committed by persons below eighteen years of age."
Article 6(5), International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights
On June 23, 2000, Gary Graham was put to death by lethal injection,
despite a number of disturbing concerns about the legitimacy of his
trial. The lawyer for the accused did not conduct a pre-trial
investigation. Witnesses who did not believe Graham was the
murderer were not called to testify, and the one eyewitness who
identified Graham did so from a photo lineup in which Graham's
picture was the only one that resembled the actual killer. Graham
was a juvenile when he was charged. 
On 22 April 1998, Joseph John Cannon was led to the lethal
injection chamber in Texas. The first attempt to kill him failed
when the needle "blew out of his arm" as the lethal solution
began to flow. Observers were led away while the needle was
reinserted. Joseph John Cannon was 17 years old when he killed Anne
Walsh, the crime for which he was sentenced to death. His life up
to that point had been one of brutality and abuse. Despite being
diagnosed as brain-damaged and schizophrenic, he received no
treatment for his mental disorders. His childhood was so deprived
that on death row he fared much better, learning to read and write.
His execution was a clear violation of international law which
prohibits the execution of juvenile offenders.
On 18 May 1998, Texas again ignored international law when it
executed Robert Anthony Carter for a crime he committed when he was
17. He too had been severely abused as a child, and had suffered
brain damage, facts not made known to the jury which sentenced him
to die. In May 1998, more than 25 other people were on death row in
Texas for crimes they committed when under the age of 18. Elsewhere
in the USA, more than 40 other such prisoners were under sentence
of death.
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