Political Quotes

“I rise in strong opposition to the McCollum amendment which would strike the provisions of H.R. 4092 that bar execution of prisoners who demonstrate that their death sentence was imposed because of racial discrimination. I am sure that the proponents of this amendment, like me, deplore racial injustice in the courts as elsewhere and would like to be certain that penalties for crimes are measured out without regard to race or ethnicity. On this point we agree, criminals should be punished for their crimes regardless of their race or ethnicity. Unfortunately our criminal justice system is far from perfect. We are faced with a system that time and again has disproportionately sentenced African-American men and women to death--even when one accounts for the crime committed. Since 1988, 33 of the 37 federal death penalty defendants have been African-Americans. In the current administration which I look upon as being more enlightened regarding the unfairness in our judicial system, all of the defendants the Attorney General has approved for the death penalty have been African-American. The General Accounting Office, Congress' own investigative arm, has concluded in its study that racism definitely affects the use of the death penalty in the United States. Further studies have found undeniably that in an alarming 82 percent of the time, the race of the victim influences whether or not the defendant is sentenced to death.”