A Black federal death row inmate who was convicted by an all-white jury is set to be executed in November (article available here). Orlando Hall's execution is scheduled for November 19, 2020. Hall was convicted in Texas in 1994. Hall's attorneys have issued a statement regarding the potential execution. See previous coverage here. The attorneys say Hall had been sentenced to death at the recommendation of an all-white jury and that racial bias had been shown in the selection of those jurors. The attorneys said jurors also never heard about how Hall had once saved his 3-year-old nephew's life by jumping from a second-floor balcony to rescue him from drowning in a motel swimming pool.
If the execution goes ahead as planned, 49-year-old Hall will become the eighth man put to death this year. Last week, the U.S. government executed Christopher Vialva, 40—the first Black federal death row inmate put to death since federal executions resumed in July. The first five inmates executed were white, while the sixth was Navajo. Last month, the Death Penalty Information Center published a report on the persistence of racial discrimination relating to the U.S. death penalty. See previous coverage here.
Of the 55 inmates currently on federal death row, almost half (25) are Black, according to the latest figures from the DPIC, though Black people make up only 13 percent of the population. Forty percent (22) of federal death row inmates are white, seven are Latinx, and one is Asian.