An fitting MLK-week race reminder

This morning, I happened across the website of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama and its page on race in the state’s criminal justice system.  I thought it fitting to close the MLK work week with a review of the racial skew in Alabama’s “modern” system of criminal justice:

Although black people in Alabama constitute 26% of the total population, none of the 19 appellate court judges and none of the 42 elected District Attorneys in Alabama are black.  Nearly 63% of the Alabama prison population is black.

Although only 6% of all murders in Alabama involve black defendants and white victims, over 60% of black death row prisoners have been sentenced for killing someone white.  Each year in Alabama, nearly 65% of all murders involve black victims.  However, 80% of the prisoners currently awaiting execution in the state were convicted of crimes in which the victims were white.

Between 1975 and 2001, there were 23 executions in Alabama.  Nearly 70% percent of those executed were black. In 21 out of the 23 cases, black people were significantly underrepresented in the juries that condemned the accused to death.  In 14 of those cases, the jury was either all-white or had only one black juror although the counties where the cases were tried were between 33% to 47% black.