Studies have found persistent patterns of racial disparities in courts imposing the death penalty, with black people much more likely to receive such verdicts than white people.
Pennsylvania is the only statethat fails to provide any state funding towards the representation of defendants who are too poor to pay for private attorneys. The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania have therefore filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking the state Supreme Court to hold Pennsylvania’s capital punishment system in violation of the state constitution.