Death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions in Missouri illus­trate the arbi­trari­ness that is applied coun­ty by coun­ty across the coun­try in cap­i­tal cas­es. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, whose juris­dic­tion cov­ers the city, has nev­er tak­en a cap­i­tal case to tri­al since her elec­tion in 2001. But Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, whose juris­dic­tion is the sub­ur­ban coun­ty, has won death sen­tences against 10 peo­ple since 2000, despite the fact that the coun­ty has only one-fourth as many mur­ders as the city. The two long­time Democrats have adja­cent juris­dic­tions with one urban and one more rur­al. Their deci­sions fit into a pat­tern around the coun­try: urban pros­e­cu­tors are less like­ly than their sub­ur­ban or rur­al coun­ter­parts to go after death sen­tences. Hence, what side of the coun­ty line a crime is com­mit­ted on can be a mat­ter of life and death.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s pre­de­ces­sor, Dee Joyce Hayes, acknowl­edged that after 20 years work­ing as a pros­e­cu­tor and cir­cuit attor­ney, she found that death sen­tences are arbi­trary. ​“I nev­er saw a way that you could make the death penal­ty con­sis­tent across juris­dic­tions, juries, coun­ties, and pros­e­cu­tors,” she said. Michael Rushford, pres­i­dent of the Criminal Justice League Foundation, a California vic­tims’ rights advo­ca­cy group , said, ​“I’ve got to believe in some places that mon­ey becomes a prob­lem. If it’s going to clean out the bud­get, there may be some pres­sure not to go for the death sentence.” 


(H. Ratcliffe, ​“Prosecutors use dis­cre­tion dif­fer­ent­ly in death sen­tenc­ing,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 6, 2008). See Arbitrariness.

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