I read those stats in a book I read on Leonard Peltier a few years back. I don't get all my information off the internet, its too unreliable.
You do realise that there is no way the death penalty will be limited to cases where the defendant admits to their own guilt, right? Like, it's a great idea and all, but it just won't happen.
http://freepeltier.org
Although Leonard isn't on death row, he has been imprisioned for more than 2 decades for a crime he did not commit. Since his initial trial it has been proven that his weapon did not fire the bullets which killed/injured the men in question and much of the testimony of one of the key witnesses was illegally extradited. He is Native American, which is by far the most marginalised group in the USA, and is one of many cases where the law comes down much harder on an ethnic minority.
here are some more resources:
http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/crimjust/death.htm
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=105&scid=5
" According to the findings of a Governor-commissioned death penalty study conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland, the state's death penalty system is tainted with racial bias, and geography plays a significant role in who faces a capital conviction. The study, one of the nation's most comprehensive official reviews on race and the death penalty, concluded that defendants are much more likely to be sentenced to death if they have killed a white person."
