The History of Capital Punishment in Mississippi: An Overview
By Donald A. Cabana
The first known execution by the State of Mississippi was July 16, 1818, in Adams County with the hanging of George H. Harman, a white male, for “stealing a Negro.” Since then, the state has conducted 794 known executions. Of those executed, 639 have been black males, 117 white males, 19 black females, 2 Indian males, and 16 individuals not completely identified either by gender or by race. No white females are known to have been executed by the state.
Hanging, or the gallows, was the method of execution in Mississippi until 1940, when lawmakers replaced it with the electric chair. The gas chamber replaced electrocution in 1955, and the chamber was replaced by lethal injection in 2002.
(emphasis added)
The Situation In 2017:
A rare sight indeed, saved by judicial and technical delays in the execution of his sentence, Ricky Jackson who spent 40 years on death row is finally exonerated.
February 10, 2017, In order to speed up executions, Mississippi House passes bill for executions by gas chamber, firing squad, electric chair due to shortage of lethal injection drugs...
Read more here: Mississippi considers firing squad, electrocution, gas chamber as methods of execution
Disparate Impact
"In 82% of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks."
- United States General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing, February 1990
You read that correctly... Blacks are 41.7 % of those on death row, while Blacks make up only 13.1 % of the overall U.S. population (npr.org who's waiting on death-row)
Graphics from: deathpenaltyinfo.org
Not enough...? then click below to read the words of a murderer (convicted for a crime committed at the tender age of 18) who explains the reality of being black in America...
(Ray Jasper was in fact put to death by the State of Texas, March 19, 2014)
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