Studied to Death By Wiley Hall III Let's suppose that state lawmakers agree to impose a two-year moratorium on the death penalty, and that during this period the University of Maryland gets to conduct its proposed study of racial bias. That's what the Maryland General Assembly is considering as it nears the April 9 close of its 2001 legislative session. The House of Delegates has approved the measure, but it is stalled in the state Senate's Judicial Proceedings Committee. Lawmakers are wheeling and dealing.
Passions are high.
But let's put all that aside, leap forward a few days, and pretend that the measure passes as written. No executions for two years, pending a study to determine whether capital punishment is unfairly imposed on African-Americans. Well, allow me to make a few predictions. I predict that, beyond the undisputed fact that nine of the 13 people on death row in Maryland are black, they will discover that most of the people sentenced to death since the state restored the death penalty in the mid-1970s have had dusky skin and hair like lamb's wool. I predict they will learn that most if not all of the blacks condemned to die were tried by a white prosecutor before a majority-white jury in a courtroom presided over by a white judge.