Policy Issues

Arbitrariness

The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for only the worst of the worst crimes. But legally irrelevant factors such as race, geography, and the quality of counsel disproportionately determine who is sentenced to death.

DPIC Report: The 2% Death Penalty

DPIC Report: The 2% Death Penalty

How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All

DPIC Podcast: Discussions With DPIC

DPIC Podcast: Discussions With DPIC

Authors of Death-Penalty Study Discuss Tennessee’s ​“Death Penalty Lottery”

Overview

A punishment that is administered in an arbitrary way — that is, imposed on some individuals but not on others, with no valid justification for the difference — is unconstitutionally cruel, just as an excessively harsh punishment is cruel. Arbitrary punishments also open the door to racial and other discrimination: if the sentencing authority has inadequate guidelines, prejudice can lead to harsher penalties for disfavored minorities.

If speeders who drove yellow cars were consistently ticketed but speeders who drove other colored cars were not, the application of the speeding law would be considered unfair, even if there were no mention of a car’s color in the law. In a death penalty system in which less than 2% of known murderers are sentenced to death, fairness requires that those few who are so sentenced should be guilty of the most horrific crimes or have worse criminal records than those who are not. A system in which the likelihood of a death sentence depends more on the race of the victim or the county in which the crime was committed, rather than on the severity of the offense, is also arbitrary.

The Supreme Court struck down all death penalty laws in 1972 because their application was arbitrary. In 1976, constitutional guidelines were instituted in an attempt to prevent such capriciousness in the future.

At Issue

More than forty years of evidence strongly suggests that the Court’s guidelines have been ineffective. Irrelevant factors such as race, poverty, and geography still seem to determine who is sentenced to death. Short of applying the death penalty in all murder cases (a path condemned by the Supreme Court), it may be impossible to devise rules that clearly delineate which crimes and which defendants merit death and that juries and judges are able to consistently apply.

What DPIC Offers

DPIC provides statistics on executions, death sentences, and death row that include demographic information on the defendant and victim. DPIC has also highlighted relevant studies demonstrating the continued arbitrariness in the application of the death penalty.

News & Developments


News

Nov 21, 2024

Alabama is Set to Execute Carey Grayson in its Third Nitrogen Gas Execution in 2024

Alabama is sched­uled to exe­cute Carey Grayson by nitro­gen hypox­ia on November 21, 2024, for his involve­ment with three oth­er teens in the death of a hitch­hik­er in 1994, when he was 19 years old. Mr. Grayson’ exe­cu­tion would be Alabama’s sixth exe­cu­tion in 2024, and the third by nitro­gen hypox­ia. The state acknowl­edged Mr. Grayson was not the most cul­pa­ble of the group, yet he is the only one of the four teens to face an exe­cu­tion. Mr. Grayson, and three oth­ers, were con­vict­ed of capital…

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News

Nov 07, 2024

Idaho: Federal Judge Grants Stay of Execution for Thomas Creech; Defense Asks Court to Bar Death Penalty for Bryan Kohberger

After sur­viv­ing a botched exe­cu­tion attempt in February, Thomas Creech was sched­uled for exe­cu­tion a sec­ond time on November 13 in Idaho. On Wednesday, November 6, a fed­er­al dis­trict court issued a stay of exe­cu­tion to allow more time to con­sid­er Mr. Creech’s legal claims. The Idaho Department of Corrections announced that exe­cu­tion prepa­ra­tions have been sus­pend­ed” and the exe­cu­tion war­rant will…

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News

Nov 05, 2024

DPI Report Provides Valuable Context for 2024 Elections

As vot­ers across the United States cast their bal­lots on elec­tion day, the Death Penalty Information Center’s July 2024 report, Lethal Election: How the U.S. Electoral Process Increases the Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty, pro­vides valu­able con­text on the inter­sec­tion of pol­i­tics and the death…

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News

Oct 29, 2024

Hearings Begin on Constitutional Challenge to Kansas’ Death Penalty and Capital Jury Selection Process

On October 28, 2024, hear­ings began in Kansas’ Wyandotte County District Court regard­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death penal­ty and its cap­i­tal jury selec­tion process. A coali­tion of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of Kansas, the Kansas Death Penalty Unit, and the law firms Hogan Lovells and Ali & Lockwood brought the chal­lenge. The team argues that the death penal­ty, which is rarely used in Kansas, is arbi­trary, racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, unre­li­able, and…

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News

Oct 04, 2024

A Chance at Life, Withdrawn: When Politics Interferes with Plea Deals

American pros­e­cu­tors have immense pow­er and rel­a­tive­ly unchecked dis­cre­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es. But in sev­er­al recent cas­es, death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers reached agree­ments with pros­e­cu­tors that would have saved them from exe­cu­tion, only to learn that anoth­er offi­cial had inter­fered to block the agree­ment. Critics have argued that these deci­sions sow pub­lic dis­trust in the legal process and raise con­cerns that gov­ern­ment offi­cials may be exploit­ing death penal­ty cas­es for political…

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