The US has voted NO on these. In a 1990 report, the US General Accounting Office determined that those who murdered whites, Black and white alike, were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered Blacks. In interracial murders, nationwide only eight whites have been executed for murdering Blacks, while 188 Blacks have been executed for murdering whites. There are over 300 mentally retarded people on death row and 33 have been executed since 1976. In Houston the DA doesn't usually try someone for capital murder, but just murder, if the family can afford to hire legal counsel.
Many defendants meet their attorney the day before or the morning of their trial.
Many of those on death row are mentally ill. Friends tell me of men screaming out loud all night long, men who smear their feces on the walls, men who mutilate themselves, men who sit and cry, men who never say a word. The are prisoners who need mental health care, not execution. I have to mention that in Texas the prison system is moving ALL men on death row to a new unit and housing them in cells with solid steel doors, not bars, in total isolation. They eat in their cells.