At a congressional hearing in which FBI director Louis Freeh was grilled over the agency's bungling of the Timothy McVeigh case, Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D, RI) demanded to know Freeh's position on capital punishment. Kennedy then asked, "What is your answer to the fact that... minorities and poor people have a greater likelihood of being put to death than they have of getting cancer from smoking?"

When asked for a specific reference for this claim, Kennedy's office directed reporters to Richard Dieter, author of The Death Penalty in Black & White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides. Dieter's actual claim is that "Race is more likely to affect death sentencing than smoking affects the likelihood of dying from heart disease."

"He kind of paraphrased it," explained Kennedy spokesman Larry Berman.

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