Over 4 percent of those executed are completely innocent

...Careful estimates by the National Academy of Sciences find that over 4 percent of those executed are completely innocent. A much larger number are severely mentally ill. So really America has simply created a reliable procedure for executing mentally disabled people. That’s lovely. Maybe we should add a verse about that to the National Anthem.

And then there’s the racist aspects of capital punishment. The No. 1 determinant of whether someone is sentenced to the death penalty is race of the victim — meaning killing a white person is a much bigger deal in our society than killing a black person....

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/10/lee-camp-the-executions-of-elephants-and-americans/