The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 included a provision that created an enforceable Federal death penalty for murders committed by those involved in certain drug trafficking activities. The death penalty provisions were added to the "continuing criminal enterprise" statute first enacted in 1984, 21 U.S.C. Section 848. The drug trafficking "enterprise" can consist of as few as five individuals, and even a low-ranking "foot soldier" in the organization can be sentenced to the death penalty if involved in a killing. Analysis of prosecutions under the Federal death penalty provisions of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 reveals that 89 percent of the defendants selected for capital prosecution have been either African-American or Mexican- American. Moreover, the number of prosecutions under this act has been increasing over the past 2 years, with no decline in the racial disparities. All 10 of the recently approved Federal capital prosecutions have been against black defendants. This pattern of inequality adds to the mounting evidence that race continues to play an unacceptable part in the application of capital punishment in America today. 15 footnotes and appended abstracts of Federal death penalty prosecutions from 1988 through 1994