The report, titled U. S. Dept. of Justice, The Federal Death Penalty System: A Statistical Survey (1988-2000), is still available on the DoJ website. It simply gives raw numbers for the ethnic breakdowns of the federal cases in which the death penalty was sought. The percentages were obviously quite different from the makeup of the general population, causing a predictably vehement reaction from people jumping to the conclusion that these raw numbers indicated racial discrimination. ''This is the worst sort of racial profiling with the worst result,'' Julian Bond is quoted as saying in this New York Times story.

Among those making this unwarranted leap of logic was Holder himself, according to the NYT story:

''I can't help but be both personally and professionally disturbed by the numbers that we discuss today,'' Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said. ''To be sure, many factors have led to the disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic minorities throughout the federal death penalty process. Nevertheless, no one reading this report can help but be disturbed, troubled, by this disparity."

Actually, anyone with a basic understanding of the minimal probative value of these kinds of raw numbers can easily help being troubled. The raw data do not mean squat unless and until the legitimate factors among the many that Holder mentioned are controlled. No conclusion at all was warranted until that process was completed. Sure enough, nine months later DoJ issued the results of that analysis:

The proportion of minority defendants in federal capital cases exceeds the proportion of minority individuals in the general population. The information gathered by the Department indicates that the cause of this disproportion is not racial or ethnic bias, but the representation of minorities in the pool of potential federal capital cases. A factor of particular importance is the focus of federal enforcement efforts on drug trafficking enterprises and related criminal violence. The prosecution of drug crimes has generally been a key priority both of Congress and of federal law enforcement for many years.

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  In areas where large-scale, organized drug trafficking is largely carried out by gangs whose membership is drawn from minority groups, the active federal role in investigating and prosecuting these crimes results in a high proportion of minority defendants in federal cases, including a high proportion of minority defendants in potential capital cases arising from the lethal violence associated with the drug trade.

So why did DoJ release the misleading raw data in September 2000? Why did it undermine public confidence in the Department's own administration of justice with a dump of apples-and-oranges numbers that anyone involved in the field would surely know would be misinterpreted. Why did Eric Holder himself put a spin on the numbers that indicates an inflammatory conclusion he surely must have known did not follow from the raw data? These would be good questions to ask if he is the nominee.