On January 31 – the day Governor George Ryan announced a moratorium in Illinois – Senator Russ Feingold took to the Senate floor to urge President Clinton to impose a moratorium on federal executions. “The problems of inadequate representation, lack of access to DNA testing, police misconduct, racial bias and even simple errors are not unique to Illinois,” Feingold said. “These are problems that have plagued the administration of capital punishment around the country.”
Four other Senators – Dick Durbin, Edward Kennedy, Carl Levin and Robert Torricelli – joined Feingold on February 8 to ask the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on the death penalty.
Meanwhile, on February 10, the Justice Department announced it would conduct its own study on whether the federal death penalty is racially biased.
Since the reinstatement of the federal death penalty, 76% of the defendants approved for capital punishment were members of minority groups. Of the 188 defendants against whom the Attorney General has authorized seeking the death penalty, 45 have been white, 35 Hispanic, 10 Asian/Indian, and 98 African American. Currently, 74% of the 19 inmates under active federal death sentences are non-white.
