by Martina Correia
Wisconsin citizens will vote November 7 on a referendum to reinstate the death penalty, a law that has been off the books for more than 150 years. Next month’s decision threatens more than just Wisconsin’s long history as an abolitionist state and its proud progressive tradition. Justice itself is at stake.

Equality before the law is a fundamental civil--and human--right. But the death penalty is not applied equally to all people. There is clear evidence that it is racially biased.
Since 1977, more than one in three people executed have been African American. Over the same period, 80 percent of death row defendants have been executed for crimes involving White victims, even though African Americans account for more than half of all homicide victims.

Many studies have shown that, when other factors are held constant, race of the victim is the single most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death.

Behind the statistics is the differential treatment of African Americans at every turn in the criminal justice system.

From initial charging decisions to plea bargaining to jury selection and sentencing, African Americans are treated more harshly when they are defendants, and their lives are accorded less value when they are victims.

The death penalty also discriminates against the poor. Ninety-five percent of all people on death row couldn’t afford their own lawyer. Court-appointed attorneys often lack the experience needed for death penalty cases. They are usually grossly overworked and frequently underpaid.

Some have been known to sleep through large portions of the trials or be under the influence of drugs or alcohol while representing their clients.

Next month’s referendum specifies that capital convictions need to be supported by DNA evidence--but that is not the panacea that it purports to be.

Sloppy lab work and poorly trained technicians have resulted in many well-publicized cases of contaminated evidence, negating the use of DNA evidence.

In Oklahoma City, Alfred Brian Mitchell was sentenced to death based in part on testimony about DNA evidence from head forensic chemist Joyce Gilchrist--testimony that a federal judge later termed "terribly misleading, if not false." In 2001, a federal appeals court overturned Mitchell’s sentence.

Executing an innocent person is the ultimate travesty of justice. Since 1973, more than 120 people have been released from death row due to credible evidence of their wrongful conviction.

Over the same period, almost 1,050 people have been put to death: that’s more than one person exonerated for every nine people executed.

And these are just the cases that were caught before it was too late. Investigations are now underway into three potentially wrongful executions in Texas and one in Missouri.

These very real concerns about bias and innocence are damning enough. But the death penalty doesn’t even do what it is supposed to do--make us safer.

In fact, it is strongly correlated with higher-than-average murder rates: A 2000 "New York Times" review found that since the mid-1980s, the homicide rate in death penalty states has been 48 to 101 percent higher than the rate in states without capital punishment.

Wisconsin’s homicide rate is lower than the national average--now.

Wisconsin’s adopting the death penalty would be especially tragic. It hasn’t been on the books since before the Civil War.

If it hasn’t been needed for 150 years, why is it needed now? And the state already has strong progressive community programs that really do work to make people safer--programs that this referendum threatens.

It costs two to six times more to execute a person than to imprison him for life, with most of those costs coming during the trial--that is, before a sentence is even handed down. If Wisconsin adopts the death penalty, genuine crime prevention programs could suffer.

I personally experienced the proud progressive values that make Wisconsin such a great state during my recent visit there; at church gatherings, at student rallies, and at NAACP events.

I was warmed by the hospitality extended to me by Wisconsinites, old and young, and gratified by the numerous people who publicly denounced the reinstatement of the death penalty. I remain convinced that your state will choose to do the right thing and choose justice over death.

Martina Correia has been working against capital punishment since 1990. She is Amnesty International USA’s State Death Penalty Abolition coordinator for Georgia and the chair of AIUSA’s Program to Abolish the Death Penalty National Steering Committee.