This morning’ Bloomberg has an article about how, if Obama does indeed get the Democratic nomination as is expected, the Republicans intend to portray him as soft on crime.
Bloomberg points out that Obama has voted for a string of tough crime measures, and is praised by law enforcement in Illinois for his smart approach to crime issues.
Nevertheless, McCain surrogate groups are already up and running with the soft-on-crime meme. In fact, Floyd Brown, the guy who created the infamous Willie Horton ad that did much to sink the campaign of Mike Dukakis in 1988 has recently cranked" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> out a new ad that similarly plays to racial fears by attacking ” Obama’s 2001 vote against a bill that would have made gang members eligible for the death penalty.”
Keep in mind that gang members who kill people are already eligible for the death penalty if they commit a capital crime. The bill Obama voted against would have allowed murdering gang members to be executed, not if their murders were particularly brutal or heinous, but simply because they are gang members.
“There’s a strong overlap between gang affiliation and young men of color….” Obama said of his vote. “I think it’s problematic for them to be singled out as more likely to receive the death penalty for carrying out certain acts than are others who do the same thing.”
Obama is right. Already in the U.S., race has everything to do with who is given the death penalty and who is not. African Americans make up 13.4 percent of the U.S. population, but 43 percent of those on death row are black. (11 % are Hispanic.)
The race of the victim also plays a big part of whether a defendant is given the death penalty. Since 1976, when the death penalty was restored in the U.S., although whites generally make about 50 percent of the nation’s murder victims, white victims were involved in 79 percent of the death penalty cases that result in execution, according to Dick Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, DC.
Last week I was at an excellent all day criminal justice round table with Dieter and a list of other death penalty experts and journalists—- including award-winning investigative reporter Renee Ferguson from WMAQ Chicago—where we discussed, among other things, the inextricable and alarming relationship of race to the way the death penalty is carried out in this country.
Therefore it was refreshing to see that Obama rightly realized that making a gang murder an automatic capital crime would be unlikely to result in fewer gang murders. But it would assuredly put even more blacks (and Hispanics) on death row.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a president in office who has the courage to be smart on crime, not a knee-jerkingly “tough” panderer?
Deep down, I think that’s what most Americans want too–-that is, if they are able to hear themselves think over the din of the covertly-racist political scare tactics that, it seems, are surely to come.
Look, I don’t have much time or I would let you have it, but the an ad against Bush connected him with the murder of a black man in Texas who was dragged behind a truck. It doesn’t matter that Bush favored the death penalty for those killers. Of course, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharton along with Rev. Wright will have plenty of race accusations against the Republicans, probably peppered with reminders of lynchings. Don’t talk about race cards.
BTW, your statistics are absolutely terrible. Do some research and see what’s behind the numbers. You’ll find something at work other than racism.
Once again, I hasten to remind you: if you make a claim, provide the information to back it up. Celeste has; you haven’t.
Woody, frankly, the more closely you look behind the statistics, the more you see that race has everything to do with the way the death penalty is applied. Trust me when you yank apart the numbers, it gets worse, not better.
Having nothing to do with the election, this is an issue about which we need to have a dialogue. Personally, I think it’s a topic that the Supreme Court should revisit. But the Supremes are understandably reluctant to do so because they realize that if they address the racial inequities underlying the application of the death penalty it will trigger a de facto ban of it altogether and they’re not willing to go there as the country still favors capital punishment by a fairly substantial margin.
If you can show me stats that say otherwise than what I’ve laid out here, have at it. But with all respect, I know such stats aren’t there.
In truth, the issue is way more alarming than I’m really saying here.
I congratulate Obama for voting against this [Mendoza] bill
where was eventually vetoed by Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a Republican, just as I agreed with Bush in opposing hate crime legislation in Texas.
Obama, May 15, 2001:
I’m concerned about is that we use this term “gang activity†as a mechanism to target particular neighborhoods, particular individuals for, admittedly, heinous crimes that I think need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law irrespective of where they happen and irrespective of the particular criminal body that they’re working with.
This logic did not stop the NAACP and the DNC from putting on the the James Byrd (Texas man dragged to death) advertisement targeting Bush.
In any case this 527 ad has little going for it and completely misses the mark.
Randy, stay out of it. Celeste is a big girl. She just provided numbers. Celeste didn’t properly scrutinize those numbers and passed on false conclusions spoon-fed to her.
For instance, was there any analysis about the types of crimes or severity of crimes committed by blacks against whites to justify harsher sentences? Was there consideration given to ecconomic factors outside of racial ones resulting in more arrests?
These numbers deserve a lot more study, and the factors should be expanded to accurately report on the situation. Not everything is racial.
Good grief, I started writing then came back and saw Celeste’s answer that posted in the meantime. This will have to wait until after lunch.
Because of the spam filter on Celeste’s site, I’ll provide links in separate posts.
The Color of Crime
Don’t attack the source. Discuss the analysis based upon FBI and DOJ studies.
The Color Of Crime: Who Commits Crime, Why and The Liberal Response
”There is nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life,” Jesse Jackson said several years ago, ”than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery — and then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
TV Schedule Change: In response to a number of complaints that Fox doesn’t show enough black and hispanic people on the network, Fox has announced that they will now air “America’s Most Wanted” TWICE a week.
Good quote, Woody, and a good reminder of how complex things are.
(I meant comment number 9….uh…not 10.)
Randy, stay out of it
The hell I will. This is your MO, Woodrow: someone makes a claim with some empirical evidence to back it up and your sole response is contradiction without a scintilla of proof to back it up.
If you can’t take the heat, perhaps you’re the one who should stay out of it.
Randy, are you an idiot? (Nevermind.) I said that Celeste didn’t analyze the statistics enough and there was her analysis right above my comment for you to see.
Read her comment number three, Woody. She hasn’t backed down on what she said.
Read my comment number one.
However, using her same sources, a link that I later provided shows different conclusions, because the publishing organization did a more thorough analysis.
Celeste just went to a seminar with an agenda on this issue. It’s important that she question the conclusions of information provided by such people. If I went there with her, she would be more embarrassed than is my teenager when I meet his teachers.
It helps to be a skeptic.
Now, head to Madison Square Garden tonight. Lynyrd Skynyrd has a concert.
Look, to make it simple, sentences consider factors other than race.
You linked to an opinion piece about crime in general in which the words prison, death penalty, capital punishment, sentence, prison and death row don’t even exist.
You’ve neither prover nor have you disproved anything.
Re: Lynyrd Skynyrd
I’m a jazz fan, not a rock and roll fan.
The site I linked provided government statistics and then provided an ananlysis of them–similar to what Celeste did. Using your logic, then Celeste only offered an opinion piece, too, and didn’t prove anything.
You just want to argue for argument’s sake. You probably really like Lynyrd Skynyrd but just want to be contrary.
Go away.
Woody,
You obviously don’t know how the death penalty is imposed in this country. The death penalty is imposed by juries in a portion of the trial known as the penalty phase after someone has been convicted of a capital crime.
Accordingly, your attempt to link an article on sentencing in general to refute the points Celeste (who unlike you linked to an empirical study) was trying to make is utterly irrelevant.
No matter you wish I’d go away. Facts are troblesome things for those who have no grasp of the facts.
Randy, if you could read correctly, what you state would have more meaning than listening to the hum of mosquitoes.
Insult me all you wish, Woody. It doesn’t the fact that you are comparing apples with oranges.
Celeste clearly has some work to do in upgrading the level of her liberal commenters. It takes a village idiot not to understand that many factors unrelated to race come into play in convictions and sentences. The information that I provided shows that, and no one addressed those points but simply tried to dismiss them.
Apples and oranges with regard to the death penalty. Maybe you should consider holding your breath until things change.
Randy, is it true that you are spraying spittle when you excitedly type your attacks?
Not at all, Woody. I’m calm. I have a grasp of the facts that you obviously lack.
Nice work chief 😉