The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area 41 death penalty by federal prosecutors were motivated by the heinousness of the crimes rather than by the defendant’s or victim’s race.56 Finally, it should also be noted that even if the claim of race of the victim were valid, it would prove only that some crimes against black victims are punished less severely than comparable crimes against white victims, not that black defendants are treated more harshly than white defendants. The solution to such a problem would not be to abolish the death penalty – resulting in greater leniency for murderers of both black and white victims, and eliminating retribution and deterrence for society as a whole – but rather to ensure that murderers of black victims are more consistently sentenced to death. Innocence Much of the ongoing debate in the United States about the death penalty centres on the possibility that an innocent person has been or will be executed. However, the purported risk of executing an innocent person is most often predicated on the reversals of murder convictions for trial error, which simply do not correlate with or reflect actual innocence. Second, despite protracted and determined effort, abolitionists have been unable to identify a single factually innocent person who has been executed post-Furman. Finally, while a segment of American society views any possibility, however slight, that even one innocent person may be executed to be an unacceptable risk, most Americans recognize that perfection in criminal justice matters cannot be absolutely guaranteed in relation to any sanction, and that any risk of error there may be relating to capital punishment is acceptable in light of the many protections that exist against such error and the deterrent and retributive value of the death penalty. As an initial matter, the constitutional and statutory rights that protect an accused in the United States are without parallel in the modern world, including the presumption of innocence, requirement of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the right to confront witnesses, the right to compulsory process to obtain the testimony of witnesses, the right to effective assistance of counsel, the right to a jury trial, the right to have the prosecution disclose exculpatory evidence, the right to a fair trial, and, in a capital case, the right to have the jury be given the option of convicting of a lesser included offence. The accuracy of conviction and sentence are further assured by two distinct tiers of post-conviction review: direct appeal and habeas (or collateral) review. In addition, if following the trial, appeal, and habeas review, there nonetheless exists doubt about guilt, a defendant can seek clemency from the executive branch. 56 Stephen P. Klein, Richard A. Berk, Laura J. Hickman, “Race and the Decision to Seek the Death Penalty in Federal Cases” (July 2006), available at: http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR389/.