Two weeks ago, Patrick McDermott wrote about the death penalty, “before you sign that petition, look at all sides of the matter.”

And the folks who have brought that petition, the LUCAP Moratorium Campaign project, appreciate his bringing up the complicated questions the death penalty raises.

McDermott is right that there’s a lot of sloppy thinking on all sides, and the best way to fix it, we Moratorium folks believe, is for people to really stop and examine the issues.

In fact, that’s why we’re calling for a moratorium.

Though many within the movement, myself included, seek to abolish the death penalty, many others, such as the current governors of Illinois and Maryland, just want to stop it for a while to really take a look at the system.

Why? What’s wrong with the system?

Well, as McDermott said, some of the big complaints are about “racial bias, innocence and the justification of the state as executioner.”

We’d add a few other points, such as the income of those on death row, juveniles, lack of deterrence and cost.

Regarding the “state as executioner,” quite a few abolitionists could talk for a while.

But the arguments about our flawed system are far more compelling to the majority of Americans, who might support the death penalty but want it to be fair.

So we’ll just look at those.

McDermott quotes the U.S. Bureau of Justice that, “White people have made up the majority of those under sentence of death.”

The current statistic, as of Oct. 9, 2002, is 57 percent, according to www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, by the way.

Then why, as McDermott asks, is the percentage of white people on death row higher than the percentage of homicides by white people?

Because when white people die, the system does something, and it would make sense, in our still very segregated country, for white people to usually kill white people.

Besides the fact that as of July 1 the percentage of black people on death row is three times higher than the percentage of black people in our country, 81 percent of the victims of those on death row are white, while only 45 percent of the people on death row are, according to deathpenaltyinfo.org.

For many, race of the accused no longer matters since “the person who did it is a murderer.”

They do, however, care about the race of the victim, especially if that victim is white.

Regarding innocence, McDermott attacks the Moratorium and the Innocence Project’s statistics, which have shown how more than 100 people have been set free from death row based on DNA evidence and often very basic legal research.

Further information on this can be found at www.innocenceproject.org.

He asks only to recognize that “statistics can be misused,” without really providing counter-evidence.

If someone is found not guilty in a court of law, they are not guilty.

DNA is hard to disagree with: check out the site yourself.

And why were so many more sentenced to death for crimes they didn’t commit?

Because an overwhelming amount of people on Death Row are poor. According to www.moratoriumcampaign.org, “The American Bar Association (ABA) has reported that over 90 percent of those on death row couldn’t afford their own attorney at trial and were appointed counsel . . . No state has met the 1990 standards developed by the ABA for the training and appointment of counsel for indigent defendants.”

There are a few other important things you should know about.

Since 1990, there are only six countries that execute people for crimes they committed before they were 18.

Of those, the United States executes the most.

Also, the death penalty doesn’t deter crime.

Though the South executes the most people (80 percent), it has the highest murder rate.

The Northeast, which executes the least (1 percent), has the lowest murder rate, according to deathpenaltyinfo.org.

Lastly, for those convinced that our government spends way too much money, states guess that death row imprisonment and an execution cost anywhere between one and seven million dollars.

Life imprisonment costs about $500,000 for each case, incarceration included, according to moratoriumcampaign.org.

But, as McDermott said, “Don’t take my word for anything. Draw your own conclusions.”

Check out the Web sites listed above, along with www.prodeathpenalty.com, and figure out where you stand.

Once you see the truth, come by our table and sign the petition.

We’re there every day someone’s executed, so we’ll be around again soon.

Jeff Guhin is an English and sociology senior.

Members of the Moratorium Campaign solicit petition signatures.