美国司法体系的弊端

 美国司法体系的弊端

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/resources/publications-and-testimony/studies/p6?amp;scid=19&did=220

Jul 24, 2024

New Study Finds Evidence of Racial Bias in California Death Sentences As Resentencings Begin in Cases Tainted by Discriminatory Jury Selection

As Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price seeks to rem­e­dy her office’s his­to­ry of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry jury selec­tion, an study pub­lished in the 2024 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies by Catherine M. Grosso, Jeffrey Fagan, and Michael Laurence finds empir­i­cal evi­dence that the race of the defen­dant and the race of the vic­tim affect the like­li­hood of a death sen­tence being imposed in…

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Feb 28, 2023

NEW RESOURCES: Interactive Display Illustrates Conditions on Death Row

A joint research project begun by two Texas uni­ver­si­ties illus­trates the con­fine­ment con­di­tions of death-row pris­on­ers, includ­ing areas such as vis­i­ta­tion, health care, attor­ney vis­its, recre­ation, food, and oppor­tu­ni­ties for work. The Capital Punishment & Social Rights Research Initiative has cre­at­ed an ini­tial info­graph­ic describ­ing the con­di­tions in…

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Sep 30, 2022

Report: Black People 7.5 Times More Likely to Be Wrongfully Convicted of Murder than Whites, Risk Even Greater if Victim was White

Black peo­ple are about 7½ times more like­ly to be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der in the U.S. than are whites, and about 80% more like­ly to be inno­cent than oth­ers con­vict­ed of mur­der, accord­ing to a new report by the National Registry of Exonerations. The already dis­pro­por­tion­ate risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tion, the Registry found, was even worse if the mur­der vic­tim in a case was…

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Sep 23, 2022

North Carolina ACLU Challenges Death Qualification of Jurors as Racially and Sexually Discriminatory

Lawyers for a North Carolina cap­i­tal defen­dant have filed a sweep­ing chal­lenge to the method by which death-penal­ty jurors are empan­eled, argu­ing that the com­bi­na­tion of a process known as ?“death qual­i­fi­ca­tion” and dis­cre­tionary jury strikes pro­duces a jury so racial­ly and sex­u­al­ly unrep­re­sen­ta­tive that it vio­lates a defendant’s right to a fair…

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Aug 29, 2022

Report: Racial Disparities in Death Sentences Imposed on Late Adolescent Offenders Have Grown Since Supreme Court Ruling Banning Juvenile Death Penalty

Racial dis­par­i­ties in U.S. death sen­tences imposed on late ado­les­cent offend­ers have grown sub­stan­tial­ly since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against juve­nile offend­ers in 2005, accord­ing to a new report by University of North Carolina polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Frank R. Baumgartner…

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Jul 20, 2022

New DPIC Podcast: The Death Penalty Census

Data from fifty years of the mod­ern U.S. death penal­ty reveal ?“a sys­tem that is rife with error, filled with dis­crim­i­na­tion, [and] very, very dif­fi­cult to fair­ly admin­is­ter,” Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham says in the July episode the Discussions with DPIC pod­cast. The episode, a dis­cus­sion between Dunham and 2021 – 2022 DPIC Data Fellow Aimee Breaux about the launch of DPIC’s ground­break­ing Death Penalty Census data­base, was released July 20,…

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Aug 06, 2021

DPIC Analysis: 13 Exonerated in 2020 From Convictions Obtained by Wrongful Threat or Pursuit of the Death Penalty

A Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has found that law enforce­ment use or threat of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion against sus­pects or wit­ness­es con­tributed to the wrong­ful con­vic­tions of 10% of the peo­ple exon­er­at­ed in the United States and more than one-fifth of all mur­der exon­er­a­tions in…

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Mar 26, 2021

Georgia Supreme Court Asked to Overturn ?‘Nearly Impossible’ Evidentiary Burden of Proving Intellectual Disability

The Georgia Supreme Court is con­sid­er­ing a chal­lenge to the unique­ly high bur­den of proof the state impos­es on cap­i­tal defen­dants and death-row pris­on­ers to deter­mine whether they are inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. On March 23, 2021, the court heard argu­ment in a case brought by Rodney Young, a death-row pris­on­er who asserts that Georgia’s harsh stan­dard uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sub­jects defen­dants with intel­lec­tu­al disability…

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Apr 03, 2020

2019 Exoneration Report: Official Misconduct and Perjury Remain Leading Causes of Wrongful Homicide Convictions

Official mis­con­duct and per­jury or false accu­sa­tion con­tin­ue to be the main rea­sons inno­cent men and women are wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed in America, accord­ing to the 2019 annu­al report by the National Registry of Exonerations. That mis­con­duct, the report indi­cates, is most preva­lent in cas­es involv­ing the most seri­ous criminal…

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Apr 02, 2020

STUDIES — Junk Psychological Science Continues to Infect Death-Penalty Determinations

Courts are fail­ing bad­ly in keep­ing junk psy­cho­log­i­cal sci­ence out of the court­room in crim­i­nal cas­es, per­mit­ting the admis­sion of psy­cho­log­i­cal tests that have nev­er been reviewed for reli­a­bil­i­ty and oth­ers that have been found unre­li­able, a recent study reports. Among the prob­lem­at­ic tests, anoth­er group of psy­chol­o­gists write, is a ?“psy­chopa­thy check­list” com­mon­ly used by pros­e­cu­tors to argue that a defen­dant pos­es a future dan­ger to soci­ety and should be sen­tenced to…

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Feb 24, 2020

Report: Failure to Implement Reforms Undermines Legitimacy of Kentucky’s Death-Penalty System

Nine years after an American Bar Association (ABA) study iden­ti­fied sys­temic defi­cien­cies in Kentucky’s admin­is­tra­tion of its death-penal­ty laws, a new report by past and cur­rent Kentucky pub­lic defend­ers charges that the Commonwealth’s fail­ure to take any mean­ing­ful reme­di­al action under­mines the legit­i­ma­cy of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the…

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Jan 02, 2020

Report Addresses Death-Row Family Members’ Barriers to Mental Health Care

Families who have a loved one on death row, or who have expe­ri­enced the exe­cu­tion of a loved one, suf­fer a vari­ety of adverse men­tal health effects, includ­ing depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), accord­ing to a new report by the Texas After Violence Project (TAVP). The report, Nobody to Talk to, describes the men­tal health chal­lenges faced by fam­i­ly mem­bers of death row pris­on­ers and the spe­cial dif­fi­cul­ties those fam­i­ly mem­bers expe­ri­ence in seek­ing men­tal health…

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Jul 18, 2019

Philadelphia District Attorney Asks Pennsylvania Supreme Court to Strike Down State’s Death Penalty

Citing race dis­par­i­ties, inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion by court-appoint­ed lawyers, and arbi­trary case out­comes, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to strike down the state’s death penal­ty. In a brief filed on July 15, 2019 in the con­sol­i­dat­ed appeals of Philadelphia death-row pris­on­er Jermont Cox and Northumberland County?’s Kevin Marinelli, the District…

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May 13, 2019

Science Challenges Myth that Death Penalty Brings Victims’ Families Closure

Proponents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have long argued for the death penal­ty on the grounds that it brings clo­sure to fam­i­ly mem­bers of homi­cide vic­tims. But sci­ence sug­gests that achiev­ing clo­sure through exe­cu­tion may be a myth, says fam­i­ly and child ther­a­pist Linda Lewis Griffith (pic­tured) in a May 6, 2019 col­umn in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, and that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment may actu­al­ly make matters…

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May 10, 2019

Study Finds Louisiana Spends An Extra $15 Million Per Year on Death Penalty

A new study of Louisiana?’s death penal­ty reports that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem costs tax­pay­ers at least $15.6 mil­lion a year more than a sys­tem with life with­out parole as the max­i­mum sen­tence. The study by retired New Orleans dis­trict Chief Judge Calvin Johnson (pic­tured, left) and Loyola Law Professor William Quigley (pic­tured, right), released on May 2, 2019, found that Louisiana has spent more than $200 mil­lion on its…

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Mar 26, 2019

Researcher — Capital Sentencing Evidence Shows Death Penalty Race Bias is Real

For decades, stud­ies have shown per­sis­tent racial dis­par­i­ties in the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Saying ?“death sen­tences are uneven­ly and unfair­ly applied based on race,” California Governor Gavin Newsom on March 13, 2019 imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in the state with the nation’s largest death row. Responding to the governor’s mora­to­ri­um In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Stanford psy­chol­o­gy professor…

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Mar 07, 2019

Study Reports More Than Three-Fold Drop in Pursuit of Death Penalty by Pennsylvania Prosecutors

A new study of four­teen years of Pennsylvania mur­der con­vic­tions has doc­u­ment­ed a sharp decline in coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors’ use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment across the Commonwealth. After exam­in­ing the court files of 4,184 mur­der con­vic­tions from 2004 to 2017, the Allentown Morning Call found that Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty at more than triple the rate (3.3) at the start of the study peri­od than they did four­teen years lat­er — a drop of more than 70%. In…

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Jan 03, 2019

Study: International Data Shows Declining Murder Rates After Abolition of Death Penalty

Nations that abol­ish the death penal­ty then tend to see their mur­der rates decline, accord­ing to a December 2018 report by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, a Washington, DC-based orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes human rights and democ­ra­cy in Iran. The report exam­ined mur­der rates in 11 coun­tries that have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, find­ing that ten of those coun­tries expe­ri­enced a decline in mur­der rates in the decade fol­low­ing abo­li­tion. Countries were includ­ed if they met the following…

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Nov 16, 2018

DPIC Analysis: The Decline of the Death Penalty in Philadelphia

During his elec­tion cam­paign, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner described the eco­nom­ic waste­ful­ness of city pros­e­cu­tors’ pur­suit of the death penal­ty as ?“light­ing mon­ey on fire.” A DPIC analy­sis of the out­comes of the more than 200 death sen­tences imposed in the city since 1978 (click here to enlarge image) and the last sev­en years of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion out­comes pro­vides strong sup­port for Krasner’s…

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Oct 16, 2018

73% of North Carolina’s Death Row Sentenced Under Obsolete Laws, New Report Says

Most of the 142 pris­on­ers on North Carolina?’s death row were con­vict­ed under obso­lete and out­dat­ed death-penal­ty laws and would not have been sen­tenced to death if tried today, accord­ing to a new report by the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. The report by the Durham-based defense orga­ni­za­tion, titled Unequal Justice: How Obsolete Laws and Unfair Trials Created North Carolina’s Outsized Death Row, says that near­ly three-quar­ters of the prisoners…

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Sep 21, 2018

“Judged for More Than Her Crime”: New Report Examines Worldwide Use of Death Penalty Against Women

Women face ?“wide­spread dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices in the cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion and deten­tion” in death-penal­ty coun­tries around the world, accord­ing to a new report by the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. The report, Judged for More Than Her Crime: A Global Overview of Women Facing the Death Penalty—released at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland on September 18, 2018 — exam­ines the use…

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Sep 20, 2018

DEATH-ROW CENSUS: Number of Prisoners Facing Active Death Sentences in U.S. Drops Below 2,500

For the first time in more than a quar­ter cen­tu­ry, few­er than 2,500 pris­on­ers across the United States now face active death sen­tences. According to the lat­est Death Row USA nation­al cen­sus by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), released in ear­ly September 2018, 2,743 peo­ple were on death rows in 32 states and the U.S. fed­er­al and mil­i­tary death rows on April 1, 2018. That total includes 249 peo­ple who were pre­vi­ous­ly sen­tenced to death but face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing after…

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Sep 13, 2018

New DPIC Podcast: Researcher Discusses Implications of Link Between Economic Threats and Support for Death Penalty

In the lat­est episode of our Discussions with DPIC pod­cast, Keelah Williams (pic­tured), assis­tant pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy at Hamilton College in New York, joins DPIC exec­u­tive direc­tor Robert Dunham to dis­cuss the impli­ca­tions of new research on the death penal­ty and resource…

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Aug 28, 2018

Amnesty International Issues Report on the Death Penalty in Florida

A new report by Amnesty International says Florida?’s approach to redress­ing the near­ly 400 uncon­sti­tu­tion­al non-unan­i­mous death sen­tences imposed in the state has deep­ened its sta­tus as an out­lier on death-penal­ty issues by ?“add[ing] an extra lay­er of arbi­trari­ness to [the state’s] already dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and error-prone cap­i­tal justice…

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Aug 27, 2018

New Study Finds Link Between Perception of Resource Scarcity and Support for Death Penalty

A new study by an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team of Arizona State University psy­chol­o­gy researchers has found a link between the actu­al and per­ceived scarci­ty of resources and sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The study, cur­rent­ly in press but avail­able online on August 10 in the sci­ence jour­nal, Evolution and Human Behavior, dis­cov­ered that coun­tries with greater resource scarci­ty were more like­ly to have a death penal­ty, as were U.S. states with low­er per capi­ta…

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Aug 22, 2018

NEW RESOURCES: Capital Punishment and the State of Criminal Justice 2018

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has released its annu­al report on issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2018, includes a chap­ter by Ronald J. Tabak, chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, describ­ing sig­nif­i­cant death penal­ty cas­es and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment devel­op­ments over the past…

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Aug 02, 2018

New Podcast: Authors of Tennessee Death-Penalty Study Discuss Arbitrariness

The lat­est edi­tion of Discussions with DPIC fea­tures H.E. Miller, Jr. and Bradley MacLean, co-authors of a recent study on the appli­ca­tion of Tennessee’s death penal­ty. Miller and MacLean describe the find­ings from their arti­cle, Tennessee’s Death Penalty Lottery, in which they exam­ined the fac­tors that influ­ence death-penal­ty deci­sions in the…

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Jun 27, 2018

STUDY: Tennessee Could Save $1.4 Million Annually Ending Death Penalty for Severe Mental Illness

Tennessee could save an esti­mat­ed $1.4 – 1.89 mil­lion per year by adopt­ing a ban on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for defen­dants with severe men­tal ill­ness, accord­ing to a new report by the American Bar Association Death Penalty Due Process Review Project. The report said a severe men­tal ill­ness death-penal­ty exclu­sion ?“could result in cost sav­ings [because] a sub­set of indi­vid­u­als who cur­rent­ly could face expen­sive cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions and decades of appeals would become…

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Jun 26, 2018

Report Finds Systemic Flaws, Recommends Major Reforms in Pennsylvania Death Penalty

Pennsylvania?’s death-penal­ty sys­tem is seri­ous­ly flawed and in need of major reform, accord­ing to a report released June 25, 2018, by the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment. The bipar­ti­san task force and advi­so­ry com­mit­tee — which con­sist­ed of leg­is­la­tors, pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, police chiefs, judges, and vic­tims’ advo­cates — began work in 2012 and exam­ined 17 issues relat­ed to the Commonwealth’s death penal­ty. Their years-long…

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Jun 15, 2018

STUDY: Local Mississippi Prosecutors Struck Black Jurors at More than Four Times the Rate of Whites

A new study shows that the Mississippi District Attorney’s office that has pros­e­cut­ed Curtis Flowers for cap­i­tal mur­der six times — strik­ing almost all black jurors in each tri­al — has dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly exclud­ed African Americans from jury ser­vice for more than a quar­ter cen­tu­ry. Reviewing the exer­cise of dis­cre­tionary jury strikes in 225 tri­als between 1992 and 2017, American Public Media Reports dis­cov­ered that dur­ing the tenure of Mississippi’s Fifth Circuit…

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May 23, 2018

STUDY: Pervasive Rubberstamping by State Courts Undermines Legitimacy of Harris County, Texas Death Sentences

State-court factfind­ing by judges in Harris County, Texas death-penal­ty cas­es is ?“a sham” that ?“rub­ber­stamps” the views of coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors, accord­ing to a study of the coun­ty’s cap­i­tal post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings pub­lished in the May 2018 issue of the Houston Law Review. In The Problem of Rubber Stamping in State Capital Habeas Proceedings: A Harris County Case Study, researchers from the University of Texas School of Law Capital…

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May 11, 2018

STUDIES: Death-Penalty Jury Selection ?“Whitewashes” Juries and is Biased Towards Death

As sup­port for the death penal­ty has declined in America, the process of ?“death-qual­i­fi­ca­tion” — which screens poten­tial jurors in death-penal­ty cas­es based upon their views about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — pro­duces increas­ing­ly unrep­re­sen­ta­tive juries from which African Americans are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly exclud­ed and, accord­ing to a new study by researchers at the University of California, increas­ing­ly bias­es juries in favor of con­vic­tion and death…

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May 08, 2018

NEW RESOURCES: BJS Releases ?“Capital Punishment, 2016”

The nation’s death rows con­tin­ue to shrink more rapid­ly than new defen­dants are being sen­tenced to death, accord­ing to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) sta­tis­ti­cal brief, ?“Capital Punishment, 2016,” released April 30, 2018. (Click image to enlarge.) The sta­tis­ti­cal brief, which ana­lyzes infor­ma­tion on those under sen­tence of death in the United States as of December 31, 2016, con­tains offi­cial gov­ern­ment fig­ures doc­u­ment­ing con­tin­u­ing declines in exe­cu­tions, new death…

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Apr 26, 2018

DPIC Study Shows 97% of Prisoners Who Overturn Pennsylvania Death Sentences Are Not Resentenced to Death

In Pennsylvania, death-row pris­on­ers whose con­vic­tions or death sen­tences are over­turned in state or fed­er­al post-con­vic­tion appeals are almost nev­er resen­tenced to death, a new Death Penalty Information Center study has revealed. Since Pennsylvania adopt­ed its cur­rent death-penal­ty statute in September 1978, post-con­vic­tion courts have reversed pris­on­ers’ cap­i­tal con­vic­tions or death sen­tences in 170 cas­es. Defendants have faced cap­i­tal retri­als or resen­tenc­ings in 137 of those cas­es, and…

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Mar 12, 2018

Global Study Highlights Systemic Risks of Wrongful Capital Convictions

“In 2016, at least 60 pris­on­ers were exon­er­at­ed after hav­ing been con­demned to death, in coun­tries across the geo­graph­i­cal and polit­i­cal spec­trum,” accord­ing to a new report on wrong­ful cap­i­tal con­vic­tions by the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. The report, Justice Denied: A Global Study of Wrongful Death Row Convictions, ana­lyzes risk fac­tors for exe­cut­ing the inno­cent that are endem­ic in death penal­ty cas­es irre­spec­tive of where they are tried, and…

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Dec 12, 2017

Report: Deterrence is Based on Certainty of Apprehension, Not Severity of Punishment

The cer­tain­ty of appre­hen­sion, not the sever­i­ty of pun­ish­ment, is more effec­tive as a deter­rent. So argues Daniel S. Nagin (pic­tured), one of the nation’s fore­most schol­ars on deter­rence and crim­i­nal jus­tice pol­i­cy, in his chap­ter on Deterrence in the recent­ly released Academy for Justice four-vol­ume study, Reforming Criminal Justice. Reviewing deter­rence schol­ar­ship since the 1960s and five lead­ing stud­ies from the past two decades, Dr.

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Sep 12, 2017

NEW PODCAST: DPIC Study Finds No Evidence that Death Penalty Deters Murder or Protects Police

A Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of U.S. mur­der data from 1987 through 2015 has found no evi­dence that the death penal­ty deters mur­der or pro­tects police. Instead, the evi­dence shows that mur­der rates, includ­ing mur­ders of police offi­cers, are con­sis­tent­ly high­er in death-penal­ty states than in states that have abol­ished the death penal­ty. And far from expe­ri­enc­ing increas­es in mur­der rates or open sea­son on law enforce­ment, the data show that states that have abol­ished the death…

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Aug 01, 2017

NEW RESOURCES: Capital Punishment and the State of Criminal Justice 2017

The American Bar Association has released a new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2017, an annu­al report exam­in­ing major issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. In a chap­ter devot­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Ronald J. Tabak, chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, describes sig­nif­i­cant death penal­ty cas­es and devel­op­ments over the past year. Tabak…

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Jul 17, 2017

Report Finds High Levels of Misconduct in Four Top Death Sentencing Counties

Four coun­ties that rank among the most aggres­sive users of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States have pro­longed pat­terns of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, accord­ing to a new report by the Harvard-based Fair Punishment Project. The report, ?“The Recidivists: Four Prosecutors Who Repeatedly Violate the Constitution,” exam­ined state appel­late court deci­sions in California, Louisiana, Missouri, and Tennessee from 2010 – 2015, and found that pros­e­cu­tors in Orange County, CA;…

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Jul 03, 2017

Equal Justice Initiative Report on Lynchings Outside the Deep South Suggests Links to Capital Punishment

Lynching has long been regard­ed as a region­al phe­nom­e­non, but in an updat­ed edi­tion of its land­mark 2015 report ?“Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror,” the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) has now doc­u­ment­ed more than 300 lynch­ings of African Americans in states out­side the Deep South. ?“Racial ter­ror lynch­ing was a nation­al prob­lem,” said EJI Director Bryan Stevenson (pic­tured). More than six mil­lion African American migrants fled ?“as refugees and exiles…

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May 19, 2017

STUDY: Juries Have Never Found Anyone Intellectually Disabled Under Georgia’s Insurmountable Standard of Proof

No death penal­ty jury has ever found a defen­dant charged with inten­tion­al mur­der to be inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty under Georgia?’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty law, accord­ing to a new empir­i­cal study pub­lished in Georgia State University Law…

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May 10, 2017

New Statistical Brief from the Bureau of Justice Statistics Documents U.S. Death Penalty Decline

The nation’s death rows are shrink­ing more rapid­ly than new defen­dants are being sen­tenced to death, accord­ing to a new Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) sta­tis­ti­cal brief, ?“Capital Punishment, 2014 – 2015.” The sta­tis­ti­cal brief, which ana­lyzes infor­ma­tion on those under sen­tence of death in the United States as of December 31, 2014 and December 31, 2015, doc­u­ments a con­tin­u­ing decline in exe­cu­tions, new death sen­tences, and death row pop­u­la­tions across the U.S. 2015 marked…

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Apr 26, 2017

Bipartisan Oklahoma Report Recommends Moratorium on Executions Pending ?‘Significant Reforms’

After spend­ing more than a year study­ing Oklahoma?’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment prac­tices, the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission has unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed that the state extend its cur­rent mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions ?“until sig­nif­i­cant reforms are accom­plished.” The bipar­ti­san com­mis­sion issued its report on April 25, 2017, reach­ing what it char­ac­ter­ized as ?“dis­turb­ing” find­ings that ?“led Commission mem­bers to ques­tion whether the death penal­ty can be…

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Mar 14, 2017

STUDIES: Rarity of Executions Makes California Jurors Less Likely to Impose Death Sentences

A study pub­lished in The Yale Law Journal pro­vides new evi­dence that, as pub­lic opin­ion con­tin­ues to shift away from the death penal­ty, juries empan­eled in cap­i­tal cas­es may become even less rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the com­mu­ni­ty and even more prone to con­vict. The study—con­duct­ed by Professors Brandon Garrett (University of Virginia), Daniel Krauss (Claremont-McKenna College), and Nicholas Scurich (University of California Irvine) — found that with increased pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the…

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Mar 08, 2017

Reports Find Record Number of Exonerations in 2016, Blacks More Likely to be Wrongfully Convicted

Companion reports released on March 7 by the National Registry of Exonerations found record num­bers of exon­er­a­tions and wrong­ful con­vic­tions involv­ing offi­cial mis­con­duct in 2016, and strik­ing evi­dence of racial bias both in the wrong­ful con­vic­tions them­selves and in the time it took the judi­cial process to exon­er­ate the wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed. The Registry’s report, Exonerations in 2016, found a record 166 exon­er­a­tions in 2016, with 54 defen­dants exon­er­at­ed of…

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Jan 27, 2017

STUDIES: At Least 201 Florida Death Row Prisoners May Be Eligible for Resentencing, 134 Had Non-Unanimous Juries

A new study reports that at least 201 Florida death row pris­on­ers — includ­ing at least 134 whom judges sen­tenced to death after juries had returned non-unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tions — may be eli­gi­ble for resen­tenc­ing hear­ings as a result of recent rul­ings by the United States and Florida Supreme Courts declar­ing the state’s death sen­tenc­ing practices…

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Dec 23, 2016

REPORT: Two-Thirds of Oregon’s Death Row Have Mental Impairments, History of Severe Trauma, or Were Under 21 at Offense

Most of the pris­on­ers on Oregon?’s death row suf­fer from sig­nif­i­cant men­tal impair­ments, accord­ing a study released on December 20, 2016 by the Fair Punishment Project at Harvard University. The Project’s analy­sis of case records, media reports, and opin­ions of Oregon legal experts found that two-thirds of the 35 peo­ple on the state’s death row ?“pos­sess signs of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness or intel­lec­tu­al impair­ment, endured dev­as­tat­ing­ly severe child­hood trauma,…

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Nov 16, 2016

New Study Finds Oregon Death Sentences Are Significantly More Costly Than Life Sentences

A new study by Lewis & Clark Law School and Seattle University that exam­ined the costs of hun­dreds of aggra­vat­ed mur­der and mur­der cas­es in Oregon has con­clud­ed that ?“main­tain­ing the death penal­ty incurs a sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial bur­den on Oregon tax­pay­ers.” The researchers found that the aver­age tri­al and incar­cer­a­tion costs of an Oregon mur­der case that results in a death penal­ty are almost dou­ble those in a mur­der case that results in a sen­tence of life impris­on­ment or a…

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Oct 24, 2016

STUDIES: Death Penalty Adversely Affects Families of Victims and Defendants

The death penal­ty adverse­ly affects both fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims and fam­i­lies of the accused, accord­ing to two recent jour­nal arti­cles. In his Psychology Today blog, Talking About Trauma, psy­chol­o­gist Dr. Robert T. Muller (pic­tured) reports that psy­cho­log­i­cal stud­ies have have found that the death penal­ty pro­duces neg­a­tive effects on fam­i­lies and friends of mur­der vic­tims (referred to as…

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Oct 04, 2016

Summer 2016 ?“Death Row USA” Shows Ongoing Decline in Death Row Populations

  • The NAACP Legal Defense Fund reports that America’s death rows have con­tin­ued to decline in size, with 2,905 men and women on death row across the United States as of July 1, 2016. The new fig­ures, report­ed in the orga­ni­za­tion’s Summer 2016 edi­tion of its quar­ter­ly pub­li­ca­tion, Death Row USA, rep­re­sent a 14% decline from the 3,366 pris­on­ers who were on death row one decade ear­li­er. The shrink­ing of death row pop­u­la­tions across the coun­try has exceed­ed the num­ber of…

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    Aug 23, 2016

    New Study Explores ?“Systemic Deficiencies” in High-Use Death Penalty Counties

    As states and coun­ties across the United States are using the death penal­ty with decreas­ing fre­quen­cy, a new report issued by the Fair Punishment Project on August 23 explores the out­lier prac­tices of 16 U.S. coun­ties that are buck­ing the nation­al trend and dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly pur­su­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. These juris­dic­tions, rep­re­sent­ing one-half of one per­cent of all U.S. coun­ties or coun­ty equiv­a­lents, are the only locales in the United States to have imposed five or more death sentences…

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    Aug 15, 2016

    STUDIES: Nebraska’s Death Penalty Costs $14.6 Million Per Year

    A new study of Nebraska’s death penal­ty found that the state spends $14.6 mil­lion per year to main­tain its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. The study, The Economic Impact of the Death Penalty on the State of Nebraska: A Taxpayer Burden?, also esti­mates that each death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion cost Nebraska’s tax­pay­ers about $1.5 mil­lion more than a life with­out parole pros­e­cu­tion. At a press con­fer­ence announc­ing the study, prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor Dr. Ernest Goss — an…

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    Jul 18, 2016

    40 Years After Key Supreme Court Decision, Constitutional and Practical Problems Plague Death Penalty

    The exe­cu­tion of John Conner on July 15 end­ed a two-month peri­od with­out exe­cu­tions in the United States, the longest such peri­od in the coun­try since 2007 – 2008. A range of state-spe­cif­ic issues have con­tributed to this stop­page, includ­ing ques­tions about the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of state death penal­ty prac­tices, prob­lems relat­ing to lethal injec­tion drugs and state exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols, and the fall­out from botched…

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    Jul 15, 2016

    Court Hearing Under Way on Constitutionality of Federal Death Penalty

    A court hear­ing is under way in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Donald Fell in a Vermont fed­er­al dis­trict court chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. This week, death penal­ty experts tes­ti­fied for the defense about sys­temic prob­lems Fell’s lawyers say may ren­der the fed­er­al death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Fell was sen­tenced to death in 2006, but was grant­ed a new tri­al because of juror mis­con­duct. The hear­ing began on July 11 and is scheduled…

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    Jul 08, 2016

    ABA Criminal Justice Report Covers Key Death Penalty Trends

    In a chap­ter from the recent­ly released American Bar Association pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2016, Ronald J. Tabak, chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, describes sig­nif­i­cant trends and recent cas­es relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Tabak high­lights the ongo­ing declines in death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions across the United States, as well as the increas­ing con­cen­tra­tion of the death penal­ty in a small num­ber of…

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    Jun 30, 2016

    Fair Punishment Project Issues Report on Deadliest Prosecutors

    A new report by Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project has found that a small num­ber of overzeal­ous pros­e­cu­tors with high rates of mis­con­duct have a huge­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact on the death penal­ty in the United States. The report, America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors: How Overzealous Personalities Drive the Death Penalty, shows that, by them­selves, these pros­e­cu­tors are respon­si­ble for more than 440 death sen­tences, the equiv­a­lent of 15% of the entire U.S. death row…

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    Apr 28, 2016

    STUDIES: Louisiana Death Penalty Staggeringly Error-Prone, Racially Biased

    More than 80% of the 241 death sen­tences imposed in Louisiana since 1976 have been reversed on appeal, and one death row pris­on­er has been exon­er­at­ed for every three exe­cu­tions in the state, accord­ing to a new study by University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Professor Frank Baumgartner and sta­tis­ti­cian Tim Lyman. The study, to be pub­lished in the Southern University Law Center’s Journal of Race, Gender and Poverty, also reveals dra­mat­ic racial dis­par­i­ties in both the trial…

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    • Mar 30, 2016

      Volunteer Death Penalty Review Commission to Examine Oklahoma’s Death Penalty

      A group of promi­nent Oklahomans have announced the cre­ation of a 12-mem­ber Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission to con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive review of the state’s death penal­ty. The all-vol­un­teer com­mis­sion will be led by three co-chairs, for­mer Governor Brad Henry (pic­tured), retired Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Reta Strubhar, and for­mer U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy…

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      Mar 18, 2016

      STUDIES: South Carolina’s Death Penalty Still Arbitrary 40 Years After Gregg

      A new arti­cle by Cornell Law School Professor John Blume (pic­tured) and Lindsey Vann of Justice 360 ana­lyzes South Carolina?’s expe­ri­ence with the death penal­ty over the last 40 years and argues that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the Palmetto State con­tin­ues to exhib­it the same arbi­trary and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry fea­tures that led the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the death penal­ty in 1972. Using Justice Stephen Breyer’s dis­sent in…

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      Jan 29, 2016

      STUDIES: Ohio Executions Reveal Vast Racial, Gender, and Geographic Inequities

      “Ohio’s death penal­ty is plagued by vast inequities” ground­ed in race, gen­der, and geog­ra­phy, accord­ing to a new University of North Carolina study. UNC-Chapel Hill polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor Frank Baumgartner exam­ined the 53 exe­cu­tions Ohio has con­duct­ed since resum­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the 1970s. His study found ?“quite sig­nif­i­cant” racial, gen­der, and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in Ohio’s exe­cu­tions that, Baumgartner said, ?“under­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in the state’s abil­i­ty to car­ry out the…

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      Jan 14, 2016

      Study Finds Disparities in Race, Gender, and Geography in Florida Executions

      Florida exe­cu­tions are plagued by stark racial, gen­der, and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties, accord­ing to a new University of North Carolina study, with exe­cu­tions 6.5 times more like­ly for mur­ders of white female vic­tims than for mur­ders of black males. (See graph, left. Click to enlarge.). UNC Chapel Hill Professor Frank Baumgartner exam­ined data from the 89 exe­cu­tions con­duct­ed in Florida between 1976 — when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Florida’s use of the death penal­ty — and…

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      Dec 10, 2015

      STUDIES: Electoral Pressures Influence Judges’ Decisions in Capital Cases

      “[E]lectoral pres­sures influ­ence judges’ deci­sions in cap­i­tal cas­es,” accord­ing to a new report by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. That report, How Judicial Elections Impact Criminal Cases, sur­veyed numer­ous empir­i­cal stud­ies that had reviewed the effects of judi­cial elec­tions on out­comes in crim­i­nal cas­es. The vast major­i­ty of crim­i­nal defen­dants — includ­ing cap­i­tal defen­dants — face elect­ed judges at tri­al and on appeal. According…

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      Oct 21, 2015

      STUDIES: Explaining Virginia’s Disappearing Death Penalty

      A new study by University of Virginia law pro­fes­sor Brandon Garrett (pic­tured) shows a dra­mat­ic decline in the death penal­ty in Virginia over the last decade. Virginia has car­ried out the third high­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions since the 1970s and his­tor­i­cal­ly has exe­cut­ed a high­er per­cent­age of its death-row pris­on­ers than any oth­er state. However, Garrett said there are now few­er than two cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing tri­als per year and Virginia juries have not imposed any new death…

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      Sep 22, 2015

      STUDIES: Elected High Court Judges Half as Likely as Appointed Judges to Overturn Death Sentences

      A Reuters analy­sis of more than 2,000 state Supreme Court rul­ings in cap­i­tal cas­es has found that elect­ed judges are much less like­ly to over­turn death sen­tences than judges who are appoint­ed. In the 15 states in which the state Supreme Court is direct­ly elect­ed, jus­tices over­turned death sen­tences only 11% of the time as com­pared to a 26% rever­sal rate in the 7 states in which jus­tices are appoint­ed. 15 states have a hybrid sys­tem, where jus­tices are ini­tial­ly appoint­ed, but must…

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      Aug 31, 2015

      STUDIES: Louisiana Study Reports Stark Death-Penalty Disparities Linked to Race and Gender of Victims

      A new study by Professor Frank Baumgartner of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tim Lyman, a Documentation Specialist in New Orleans, reports stark dis­par­i­ties in Louisiana death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions depend­ing upon the race and gen­der of the homi­cide vic­tim. The study — to be pub­lished in the Loyola University of New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law — finds that defen­dants accused of killing white vic­tims are near­ly twice as like­ly to be sentenced…

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      Aug 25, 2015

      Stanford Law Professor Debunks Myth That The Death Penalty Deters Murder

      In an op-ed for Newsweek, Stanford Law Professor John Donohue argues that there is ?“not the slight­est cred­i­ble sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment reduces the rate of homi­cide” and presents data to show that the death penal­ty is not an effec­tive deter­rent. Comparisons between neigh­bor­ing juris­dic­tions show no effect of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: ?“Whether one com­pares the sim­i­lar move­ments of homi­cide in Canada and the U.S., when only the lat­ter restored the…

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