News and Developments 2006: Sentencing

DPIC's 12th annual Year End Report was released on December 14 and reveals a broad decline in the use of the death penalty in the U.S.

Oscar Doster was found guilty earlier this year of capital murder in the course of a robbery in Alabama.  Doster claimed that his co-defendant actually committed the murder.  The jury unanimously recommended that Doster be sentenced to life without parole.  In Alabama, unlike most other death penalty states, the judge is allowed to override a jury's recommendation for life.  Typically in other states, even one juror's vote for a life sentence will prevent the court from imposing a death sentence.  Judge Ashley McKathan rejected the recommendation of all 12 jurors that Doster's life be spared.<

The May 8th edition of U.S. News & World Report highlights the declining number of death sentences handed down each year in the U.S., the smaller number of executions, and the growing number of states that are re-evaluating capital punishment.  Public support for the death penalty has also decreased because of doubts about the accuracy and fairnes of capital punishment.

The Capital Case Data Project of the American Judicature Society announced their count of 125 new death sentences in 2005, one less than in 2004.  In addition, AJS counted 14 death sentences imposed through new sentence proceedings after appellate reversals.  Those sentenced to death included 63 white defendants, 57 black defendants, and 15 Hispanics.  The largest number of death sentences were imposed in California (19) and Florida (16).  Texas had 14 death sentences, down considerably from 24 in 2004.  The Bureau of Justice Statistics will release their data on death sentences in 2005

In his new book, Death by Design: Capital Punishment as a Social Psychological System, Craig Haney argues that capital punishment, and particularly the events that lead to death sentencing itself, are maintained through a system that distances and disengages people from the true nature of the task. Haney, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, relies on his own research and that other of other scientists in approaching the question, "How can normal, moral people participate in a process designed to take the life of another?"