>>> Dennis Menard on Ethics 
 WE> This could be because they break the law more often.  I don't know of
 WE> an easy statistical way to show that this is a bias rather than
 WE> increased lawlessness.
 DM> That's true.  But there are a number of anecdotal cases that really
 DM> prompt one to wonder; check out the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
 DM> Philadelphia, about 14 years ago, black activist, on death row for
 DM> about a dozen years now.  Time's running out for him; scheduled for
 DM> execution next summer, I believe.  This is only an example.  Even a
 DM> superficial glance at the facts of this specific case can't help but to
 DM> illustrate what a sloppy frame it is ... but, Mumia will almost
 DM> certainly  executed, notwithstanding. 
What?  It wasn't this summer?  I consider this more of an example of federal 
misconduct yet it also smells of blatant racial bias.  Stuff like this 
deliberately gets aired too late for much to be done to apprehend the 
framers.  It's standard practice.
 DM> I must admit, though, I've little desire to get into a "discussion"
 DM> about this case online.  The snippets above should be sufficient, if
 DM> you have any interest in following up.  CNN recently aired a
 DM> documentary about the case, on the "Passionate Eye," as well.
Me neither, as I recall, framing seemed quite possible.  But it's small 
potatoes, as the framer was just a racist cop trying to bag himself a 
brownie.  Now it the guy was also a political activists or labor leader, the 
plot would thicken.
Here's one.  Environmentalists work with loggers to get the loggers to 
realize:  no forest, no jobs.  The environmentalist who forged this labor 
alliance get car bombed on the way to an important forest meeting in SF.  
They wake up in the hospitable charged with possession of explosive devices.  
Previously they had received telephone warnings and discussed such with an 
unsympathetic police force.  Weren't they ever stuck in a log jam!
 WE> Now, if you considered the number of arrests to the number of
 WE> convictions in each group and compared those ratios, a bias would
 WE> become more apparent as the ratios should be nearly equal.  Yes, this
 WE> is testing for a different sort of bias, but it has an advantage of
 WE> being more objective.
 DM> Yes.  But you need lots of raw data for one to be able to do this
 DM> oneself; and where does one find this kind of analysis performed and
 DM> the results made available to the general public?
I don't know.  I've heard about the claim on alternative radio. In an obtruse 
technical reference this particular data set was used as illustration on how 
to use information theory instead of statistical analysis to determine 
skewing of the data.  So why did the author choose this particular data set? 
-)
 DM> Why do statistics reveal that, in states where the death penalty has
 DM> been RE-instated after years of not having it, the rate of capital
 DM> crimes within the first few years actually increases instead of
 DM> decreasing? 
Don't know, can't guess, didn't know about this.  
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