---
title: 'Counties with Large Death Rows Often Correlates With Prosecutorial Misconduct'
description: 'Radley Balko, writing in the Huffington Post, has examined more closely some of the counties identified in DPIC’s recent report, The 2% Death Penalty, as…'
canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/counties-with-large-death-rows-often-correlates-with-prosecutorial-misconduct'
section: news
date: '2013-11-26T16:30:35-05:00'
updated: '2025-03-14T14:36:36-04:00'
source: 'Death Penalty Information Center'
---

! Radley Balko, writing in the *Huffington Post*, has examined more closely some of the counties identified in DPIC's recent report, [**The 2% Death Penalty**](/twopercent), as using the death penalty the most. Balko found that many of those high-use counties have a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct and other problems. For example, Philadelphia County has sent more inmates to death row than any other county in **Pennsylvania**. However, a study of criminal cases overturned in the state because of prosecutorial misconduct found over 60% of the cases came from Philadelphia. Duval County**, Florida**, has the largest per capita death row in the nation, but recently elected a head public defender who ran on a platform of cutting funding to public defense and billing indigent defendants who are acquitted. In the **California** counties of Santa Clara and Riverside, courts had to review thousands of cases due to prosecutors' failure to disclose exculpatory evidence, including fraud by a crime lab technician. In some instances, this misconduct hid the actual innocence of the defendant, such as that of [**Ray Krone**](/node/4900#98) in Maricopa County**, Arizona**, who was sentenced to death after prosecutors withheld crucial evidence.

(R. Balko, "[Counties That Send The Most People To Death Row Show A Questionable Commitment to Justice](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/counties-that-send-the-mo_n_4317245)," Huffington Post, November 25, 2013). See [**Prosecutorial Misconduct**](/prosecutorial-misconduct), [**Arbitrariness**](/arbitrariness?did=1328) and [**Innocence**](/innocence-and-death-penalty?did=412&scid=6). See DPIC's Report, [**The 2% Death Penalty**](/twopercent).