The best three minutes you will probably spend today learning about how two?counties – that is TWO PERCENT OF ALL COUNTIES IN THE U.S. – make up the majority of all death row convictions, all death row inmates, and all executions in America.
80 percent of all counties do not have a convicted prisoner on death row.
85 percent of all counties have not had a case result in an execution.
This means that the majority of taxpayers are carrying the financial costs in prosecution and federal review of those few places who are churning out convictions like a factory of death for a total of 25 BILLION dollars. That is the equivalent of hiring 250 new teachers for each state in the Union, and paying them $75,000 a year.
Philadelphia County, PA has a history of prosecuting people with an eye to a death penalty sentence, but?then those sentences are overturned under scrutiny because the case is rife with mistakes and inaccuracies. Also, this jurisdiction has been called into the spotlight for their practice of bigotry with regard to trying and convicting people of color.
Maricopa County prosecutors in Arizona so aggressively pursued the death penalty for so many cases, at one time there were 149 cases pending before the courts. District Attorney Andrew Thomas was disbarred as a result for corruption and abuse of power.?Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an ally, was found to have misused his power to target members of the Arizona State Supreme Court for criminal prosecution.
Watch the video here for more information, and you can learn more about how the death penalty is applied in the U.S. with bias as to poverty, race, gender, and politics here.
