Report Finds High Levels of Misconduct in Four Top Death Sentencing Counties

Four coun­ties that rank among the most aggres­sive users of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States have pro­longed pat­terns of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, accord­ing to a new report by the Harvard-based Fair Punishment Project. The report, ​“The Recidivists: Four Prosecutors Who Repeatedly Violate the Constitution,” exam­ined state appel­late court deci­sions in California, Louisiana, Missouri, and Tennessee from 2010 – 2015, and found that pros­e­cu­tors in Orange County, CA; Orleans Parish, LA; St. Louis City, MO; and Shelby County, TN—all of which cur­rent­ly face alle­ga­tions of sig­nif­i­cant mis­con­duct — ranked among the most pro­lif­ic per­pe­tra­tors of mis­con­duct in their respective states. 

Orange and Shelby coun­ties ranked 7^th and 13^th among the 2% of coun­ties respon­si­ble for a major­i­ty of death-row pris­on­ers in the U.S. as of January 2013, each hav­ing more indi­vid­u­als on their death rows than 99.5% of all coun­ties in the coun­try. In the midst of a scan­dal on an ille­gal, mul­ti-decade prac­tice of plac­ing infor­mants next to tar­get­ed pris­on­ers to attempt to extract con­fes­sions from them, Orange County imposed more death sen­tences from 2010 – 2015 than all but five oth­er U.S. coun­ties. St. Louis City ranked 10^th in exe­cu­tions from 1976 – 2012, and Orleans Parish has long been known for its pros­e­cu­tors’ fail­ures to dis­close excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence to cap­i­tal defen­dants, includ­ing three cas­es that have been the sub­jects of deci­sions by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The statewide mis­con­duct rank­ings pro­duced by the Fair Punishment Project show that these coun­ties are out­liers not only in their heavy use of the death penal­ty, but also in their pat­terns of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. Among the types of mis­con­duct found by appel­late courts were with­hold­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, improp­er argu­ments at tri­al, and hid­ing deals and favor­able treat­ment offered to infor­mants in exchange for their tes­ti­mo­ny. In one case from St. Louis, pros­e­cu­tors: sup­pressed evi­dence in the death-penal­ty tri­al of Reginald Clemons that would have sup­port­ed Clemons’ claim that he con­fessed only after hav­ing been beat­en by police; nev­er dis­closed the exis­tence of a rape kit that could have iden­ti­fied the per­pe­tra­tor; and pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny in a co-defen­dan­t’s tri­al that anoth­er per­son had com­mit­ted acts attrib­uted to Clemons at his tri­al. Longtime pros­e­cu­tor Nels Moss, Jr. also advised police offi­cers to omit cer­tain obser­va­tions that were ini­tial­ly includ­ed in their reports. Clemons was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death, but was award­ed a new tri­al — sched­uled for 2018 — because of this misconduct.