Many people in this country believe that racism was a problem, but that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s took care of it. However, we are nearing 2015 and this is far from the truth and even worse, it is evident even within our own judicial system. I believe the death penalty should be abolished in the United States because of how blatantly discriminatory it is towards people of color. Throughout the entire capital punishment process there is racism and it starts with who makes the decisions. According to the Death Penalty Information Center the racial breakdown of District attorneys in United States death penalty states is 1,794 white to 44 of color. The death penalty is a very arbitrary punishment because there are no guidelines for when a prosecutor should pursue the death penalty or when a jury should recommend it. Because of this racially prejudiced decisions can easily happen through prosecutors choosing the death penalty for some cases and not choosing it for some. It just so happens that 97 percent of the District Attorneys who give the defendants their sentences are white. Also according to the Death Penalty Information Center during the 1997 election for Philadelphia’s District Attorney, it was revealed that a candidate has produced a training video for new prosecutors about who to exclude from the jury, in the video it was noted that young black women are very bad on the jury for a prosecutor and that blacks from low-income areas are less likely to convict. Along with those comments on the video it also instructed new prosecutors on how to hide the racial motivation for their jury strikes. This is an example of systemic racism and it shows how damaging racial prejudice can be especially when someone is facing death row. Because of this, racism that is shown by prosecutors there is a flawed pattern in people who are sentenced to death row for motives that should not matter. For example research by Death Penalty Foc