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They are defined by Bowers and Pierce as "the selective or disproportionate us of capital punishment against offenders from groups in which members are subjugated, impoverished, or dehumanized by the political, economic or social conditions which they fact;....The disproportionate use of the death penalty against those whose crimes victim members, interests or institutions of the powerful or dominant groups in society," and "...selective use of the death penalty against those whose crimes appear at times and places of tension, turmoil, conflict or crisis, when fear of crime or other forms of social disorder is heightened."

The penalty of death, then, has become the machine through which extra-legal prejudices are enforced.

Your task is to ensure that private passions in this state do not override the legal protections we all hold dear.

Let me spend a few moments talking about the hist ^recent history of the struggle against priviledge in this country, for that history has helped produce the current climate for death.

Think, if you will, as the recent civil rights movement as the most recent in a series of natural reconstructions.