Since the "focus" for today has centered on the class distinctions obvious within the unequal application of the death penalty, I thought I would pass on this quotation from Furman:

"Not only does capital punishment fail in its justification, but no punishment could be invented with so many inherent defects. It is an unequal punishment in the way it is applied to the rich and to the poor. The defendant of wealth and position never goes to the electric chair or to the gallows.”

– Justice Douglas, concurring in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 251-52 (1972)

(P.S. For you non-lawyer types, Furman is the seminal case from the United States Supreme Court on the modern imposition of the death penalty.)