>Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment.
>Executed in electric chair, Florida.
>~~ John Spenkelink, d. May 25, 1979
>
google on this guy turns up some interesting stuff, for example:
The first involuntarily applied execution after the Furman Decision,
that of John Spenkelink in 1979, is particularly instructive. His
crime – killing a fellow parolee from prison whom Spenkelink
asserted had sexually assaulted and robbed him – did not present
those factors usually seen in death penalty cases. His life
presented many mitigating circumstances, although his attorneys did
not present them. Why was John Spenkelink/ / executed? In his book
/Dead Wrong - A Death Row Lawyer Speaks Out Against Capital
Punishment/, Attorney Michael Mello quotes a member of the Florida
legal establishment: "I'll tell you why they wanted to kill him. He
was white. No one in the South wants to kill a black man first. They
don't want to be labeled racist. I think the next person who gets it
will also be white. And then it's watch out blacks." [page 115]
http://www.nyscommunityofchurches.org/Hahn%20Death%20Penalty%20Testimony.htm
and
The first person (other than one prisoner who chose to be executed)
put to death as a result of that 1976 decision was a white man named
John Spenkelink. Pro-death penalty politicians who campaigned as
“tough on crime” were eager for the first victim to be a white man.
As one of Spenkelink’s lawyers said, politicians believed this would
“inoculate” the death penalty from the charge of institutional
racism. After dramatic last minute appeals—and a great deal of
coverage in the newspapers and other media—Florida officials
executed Spenkelink in the electric chair in 1979.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5420
you can see how well Mello's prediction worked out here:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=414&scid=8#1
try entering Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virgina each seperately in the search engine here:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions.ph
to see data on Black/Hispanic capital murders in the South. or totals here:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=5&did=184
les schaffer