Charles Lane at The American Interest has an interesting article addressing the issue of race and the death penalty. As he notes:
In fact, much of the statistical evidence cited by death-penalty critics to show that blacks and whites fare differently in capital cases does not necessarily prove racism at all. To the contrary, it could well reflect racial progress.
The following statistic from the article speakes volumes:
Blacks committed 51.5 % of the murders nationwide between 1976-1998 but accounted for only 41.3% of those sentenced to death from 1977 to 1999.