MORE STAYS GRANTED On October 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to Daniel Siebert, who was to be exe­cut­ed in Alabama on Oct. 25. On Oct. 22, the Georgia Supreme Court grant­ed anoth­er stay, this time to Curtis Osborne. These stays are relat­ed to the issue of lethal injec­tion as the U.S. Supreme Court con­sid­ers the mat­ter.

​“A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH:” NEWS SERIES REVEALS ARBITRARY DEATH PENALTY IN GEORGIA
According to ​“A Matter of Life or Death,” a recent four-part news series pub­lished by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia’s death penal­ty is ​“as pre­dictable as a light­ning strike.” Based on an inves­ti­ga­tion of 2,328 mur­der con­vic­tions in Georgia between January 1, 1995, and December 31, 2004, the paper deter­mined that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is unfair­ly shaped by racial and geo­graph­ic bias, and fails to reserve the death penal­ty for ​“the worst of the worst.”

The AJC reporters worked with University of Maryland crim­i­nol­o­gist Ray Paternoster to exam­ine the cas­es. Though their inves­ti­ga­tion deter­mined that 1,315 of these cas­es involved crimes that made defen­dants eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty, pros­e­cu­tors sought it in only 25% of those cas­es. Of those that faced a cap­i­tal tri­al, only 1 in 23 was sen­tenced to death. ​“It’s like a roulette wheel. Arbitrariness is a weak­ness of the death penal­ty,” observed for­mer Georgia Chief Justice Norman Fletcher.

Among the key find­ings of the inves­ti­ga­tion were the following:

  • Race Matters: Statewide, pros­e­cu­tors were twice as like­ly to seek the death penal­ty in cas­es where the vic­tim was white. The study also revealed that between 1995 and 2004, pros­e­cu­tors were about six times more like­ly to seek death when an armed rob­ber killed a white person.
  • Geography Matters: Decisions on whether to seek the death penal­ty are often deter­mined by where the crime was com­mit­ted. For exam­ple, a mur­der in Clayton County was found to be 13 times more like­ly to bring a death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion than a sim­i­lar crime a few miles away in Fulton County.
  • Nature of the Crime Matters: Throughout Georgia, geo­graph­ic and racial dis­par­i­ties were more pro­nounced in pros­e­cu­tors’ han­dling of mur­ders that involved armed rob­bery. Of the 132 mur­der­ers researchers iden­ti­fied as mak­ing up the worst 10% of death penal­ty cas­es — because their cas­es involved heinous crimes such as tor­ture, mul­ti­ple vic­tims or rape — only 29 received the death penal­ty. Fifty of these defen­dants avoid­ed the death penal­ty by plead­ing guilty in exchange for receiv­ing a life sentence.
  • Georgia’s Supreme Court has repeat­ed­ly cit­ed cas­es that had been over­turned on appeal to jus­ti­fy oth­er death sen­tences. According to the study’s exam­i­na­tion of 159 death penal­ty rul­ings by the state Supreme Court since 1982, 80% of cas­es of cas­es cit­ed at least one over­turned case. In more than a third of the deci­sions, 25% of the cit­ed sen­tences had been over­turned. Another 16 rul­ings con­tained cita­tions that were reversed after­ward. Only 14 rul­ings cit­ed no reversed cases.

  • Juries are reject­ing death sen­tences in favor of life with­out parole. Since 2000, juries have decid­ed against death in two of every three sen­tenc­ing tri­als. The trend makes each remain­ing death sen­tence more out of step with pun­ish­ment for sim­i­lar crimes. The report notes that one rea­son pros­e­cu­tors in Georgia are choos­ing not to seek death is that juries will not impose it unless guilt is irrefutable.
  • The high cost of the death penal­ty con­tributes to its arbi­trari­ness. Many pros­e­cu­tors note that seek­ing a death sen­tence in a case where there is not cer­tain­ly of a con­vic­tion is a waste of valu­able resources on long-drawn-out court pro­ceed­ings and years of appeals. In addi­tion to con­cerns about the cost of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, pros­e­cu­tors not­ed that they will often decide to not seek a death sen­tence because a vic­tims’ fam­i­ly oppos­es the pun­ish­ment, a defendant’s men­tal state is in ques­tion, or the indi­vid­ual agrees to coop­er­ate with pros­e­cu­tors to con­vict a co-defen­dant. Muscogee District Attorney John Gray Conger observed that these rea­sons and the high costs of the death penal­ty can play a role in the deci­sion to offer defen­dants a sen­tence of life with­out parole. He said, ​“That’s the unfor­tu­nate truth. It costs a lot of mon­ey to try a death case. It takes a lot of resources. It takes a lot of people.”

(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 22 – 25, 2007). Read the Series. See Arbitrariness, Costs, and Race.

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