Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama in Montgomery, a nonprofit organization that provides legal counseling, said the "mass incarceration" of African Americans is the successor of the "state-sanctioned terror" of slavery.

Forty-three percent of people on death row are black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that provides analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment.

Stevenson, National Public Interest Lawyer of the Year in 1996 and recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Medal of Justice in 1993, said that when he read a court decision about the death penalty, it broke his heart. "[It said] a certain amount of bias was inevitable. [It's a] concession to bias that I could not reconcile with a commitment to justice," he said.

Stevenson said that the criminal justice system is also financially discriminatory.

"Our challenge is to continue saying it until the people concerned with it face up to the problems. The criminal justice system treats you better if you're rich than if you're poor," Stevenson said.

Other problems with the death penalty relate to the legal representation the defendants receive, said Andrea Keilen, an attorney with Texas Defender Service, who spoke at the conference.

Keilen said that in some counties in Texas, the fee cap on investigator fees is $500. Keilen also said the state is "not consistently appointing competent lawyers," but rather those who are being disciplined for neglecting clients or fresh-out-of-law-school lawyers who have no experience with death penalty cases.

Dennis Longmire, a professor of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville who contributed to the conference's workshop on moratorium issues, echoed these sentiments.

"We need to fix the system if we're going to use it," Longmire said.

People have a "moral obligation to make sure that [the system] is operating fairly," he said.

A moratorium is a temporary halt to executions while the criminal justice system is studied.

"The level for support for a moratorium [in Texas] is strong. Legislatures need to be made aware of this," Longmire said.

According to a poll conducted by Sam Houston State University's Survey Research Program, of which Longmire is the director, about half of the people polled would be in favor of a moratorium until assured that the system protects innocent people from being executed and is implemented fairly on poor people and members of minority groups.

On Jan. 11, Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted all of the state's 167 death sentences, saying, "I have done my very best to do the right thing. The U.S. sets an example for fairness and justice, and I am still not convinced that our system in Illinois is without flaws. We continue to be at risk of executing innocent people, and so I have made this decision."

After acknowledging that it was "impossible not to get tired and discouraged" during the campaign to end the death penalty, Stevenson told attendees: "Keep your eyes on the prize and go on."