The Death Penalty in 2000: Year End Report

The year 2000 was per­haps the most sig­nif­i­cant sin­gle year affect­ing death penal­ty opin­ion in United States his­to­ry. A broad change in the way the American pub­lic views cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was pre­cip­i­tat­ed by a steady sequence of eye-open­ing events, includ­ing releas­es from death row, reports on the unfair­ness of the process, and gov­ern­men­tal action to lim­it or halt the death penalty.

Former sup­port­ers of the death penal­ty joined long-time crit­ics in rais­ing con­cerns about the accu­ra­cy and fair­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America. More con­ser­v­a­tive voic­es, such as those of Rev. Pat Robertson, Oliver North, new Congressman Tom Osborne of Nebraska, colum­nist George Will, and oth­ers voiced strong crit­i­cisms of the death penal­ty. The risk of tak­ing inno­cent lives and the gross inequities in the way the death penal­ty is applied have led to a new con­sen­sus that the sys­tem is seriously broken. 

Executions in 2000 declined 13% from the pre­vi­ous year, but still remained high at 85, the sec­ond high­est num­ber since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. A clos­er look at these exe­cu­tions shows that almost 90% occurred in the South. Only 3 states (Arizona, California and Missouri) out­side of the South con­duct­ed an exe­cu­tion this year. Texas, alone, with 40 exe­cu­tions, account­ed for almost as many exe­cu­tions as all the rest of the states com­bined.
But the larg­er sto­ry is the rever­sal of years of pres­sure to speed up exe­cu­tions. From the dec­la­ra­tion of a mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions in Illinois by a pro-death penal­ty Republican gov­er­nor, to the inter­ven­tion by the Clinton admin­is­tra­tion to stop the first fed­er­al exe­cu­tion in almost forty years, this has been a year in which skep­ti­cism about the death penal­ty process has grown considerably. 

In Illinois, the 13^th exon­er­a­tion of a death row inmate dur­ing the same peri­od that the state had exe­cut­ed 12 peo­ple became the incen­tive for Governor George Ryan to announce in January: “[U]ntil I can be sure with moral cer­tain­ty that no inno­cent man or woman is fac­ing a lethal injec­tion, no one will meet that fate.” (Chicago Tribune, 2/​1/​00). Gov. Ryan appoint­ed a blue-rib­bon com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate why so many errors were being made in cap­i­tal cas­es, and specif­i­cal­ly allowed for the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the death penal­ty will be abandoned altogether.

Governor Ryan’s action was fol­lowed swift­ly in February by the intro­duc­tion in Congress of a broad bill to address seri­ous prob­lems in the han­dling of death penal­ty cas­es. Senator Patrick Leahy (D‑VT), along with Republican and Democratic co-spon­sors in the Senate and House, called for the pas­sage of The Innocence Protection Act to ensure access to DNA test­ing and bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tion for defen­dants fac­ing the death penalty. 

Also in February, the Gallup Poll revealed that pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty had dropped to its low­est lev­el in 19 years. Support dropped 14 per­cent­age points from its high in 1994 to a lev­el of 66%. Support declined even fur­ther when respon­dents were allowed to choose life with­out parole as an alter­na­tive sen­tence. The Poll found that 65% of Americans agree that a poor per­son is more like­ly than a per­son of aver­age or above aver­age income to receive the death penal­ty. (Gallup Poll, February 8 – 9, 2000)

Other polls through­out the year con­firmed the shift in public support:

• 64% of Americans sup­port a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions until issues of fair­ness in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment can be resolved
• 89% sup­port pro­vid­ing access to DNA evi­dence in capital cases
• 83% sup­port pro­vid­ing qual­i­fied, expe­ri­enced attor­neys in cap­i­tal cases(Peter Hart Research and American Viewpoint, 9/​14/​00)
• A Harris Poll found that sup­port for the death penal­ty dropped to 64% this year, down from 75% in 1997 and 71% in 1999. The poll also found that 94% believed that some inno­cent peo­ple have been con­vict­ed of mur­der. (8/​2/​00)

• A CNN/​USA Today/​Gallup Poll shows that only a slim major­i­ty (51%) of Americans believe the death penal­ty is applied fair­ly. In addi­tion, 80% believe an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed in the United States in the past five years, and 46% believe that an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed in Texas dur­ing George W. Bush’s tenure as gov­er­nor. (6/​30/​00)

• According to an ABCNEWS​.com tele­phone sur­vey, sup­port for the death penal­ty is drop­ping. Support has fall­en from a high of 77% in a 1996 poll to 64% now. Support drops even fur­ther, to below 50%, when the alter­na­tive pun­ish­ment of life in prison with­out parole is offered. (1/​19/​00)

In June, the most com­pre­hen­sive review of mod­ern death sen­tenc­ing was pub­lished by researchers at the Columbia University Law School. The study, ​“A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973 – 1995,” exam­ined every com­plet­ed death penal­ty appeal over a 23 year peri­od. This was not a study about inno­cence, but about the process which has led to 682 exe­cu­tions and an expand­ing death row of 3,703 peo­ple. The study asked: How care­ful­ly were the orig­i­nal tri­als con­duct­ed, and can we have con­fi­dence in their results?
The answer accord­ing to the study’s author, Professor James Liebman, is that the great major­i­ty of these tri­als were con­duct­ed in vio­la­tion of basic due process, and that we can have lit­tle con­fi­dence that all of the mis­takes were caught in the often hit-and-miss appeals process. In 68% of all com­plet­ed cas­es, a review­ing court found seri­ous error requir­ing the death sen­tence or under­ly­ing con­vic­tion to be over­turned, neces­si­tat­ing a re-tri­al. From a sam­ple of the cas­es that were retried after cor­rect­ing for the errors, the death penal­ty was wide­ly repu­di­at­ed: 82% of the defen­dants did not receive the death penal­ty and 7% were com­plete­ly exon­er­at­ed. Such a sys­tem was right­ly called ​“bro­ken.”

Other reports were equal­ly pow­er­ful in expos­ing the flaws of the death penal­ty sys­tem. The book Actual Innocence, by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and James Dwyer, showed the pow­er of DNA in revers­ing con­vic­tions that had been thought to be iron­clad. Reports on the death penal­ty in Texas by the Chicago Tribune and the Texas Defender Service revealed crit­i­cal prob­lems in the coun­try’s lead­ing exe­cu­tion state. Other inves­ti­ga­tions in six states (Arizona, Maryland, North Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, and Nebraska) and on the fed­er­al lev­el are in progress may reveal prob­lems prompt­ing calls for a halt to exe­cu­tions or for further reprieves. 

Executions of juve­nile offend­ers and defen­dants with men­tal retar­da­tion con­tin­ued in 2000, espe­cial­ly in Texas, despite world­wide protests. Four defen­dants who were under 18 at the time of their crime were exe­cut­ed this year. The European Union, the American Bar Association, the American Association on Mental Retardation, and oth­er human rights orga­ni­za­tions made their strong objec­tions to some of these exe­cu­tions known. At the 11^th hour, the U.S. Supreme Court did halt the exe­cu­tion of John Paul Penry, a men­tal­ly retard­ed man from Texas. The Court will decide his case lat­er in 2001. The United States was sued in the International Court of Justice by Germany for the exe­cu­tion of two of its cit­i­zens in Arizona who were not informed of their rights under the Vienna Convention. 

The racial break­down of the 85 cas­es result­ing in exe­cu­tion this year is as follows: 

Defendants

• White — 43 (51%)
• Black — 34 (40%)
• Latino — 6 (7%)
• Nat. Amer. — 2 (2%)

Victims in the under­ly­ing mur­der

• White — 87 (76%)
• Black — 21 (18%)
• Latino — 2 ( 2%) 
• Other — 4 ( 3%)

The race of vic­tim num­bers show a con­tin­u­ing trend since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed of pre­dom­i­nance of white vic­tim cas­es. Despite the fact that nation­al­ly whites and blacks are vic­tims of mur­der in approx­i­mate­ly equal num­bers, 83% of the vic­tims in cas­es result­ing in exe­cu­tions over­all, and 76% this year, have been white. Since this dis­par­i­ty is con­firmed in stud­ies which con­trol for sim­i­lar crimes by defen­dants with sim­i­lar back­grounds, it implies that white vic­tims are con­sid­ered more valu­able in the crim­i­nal justice system.

The prob­lems of race and the death penal­ty were rein­forced in a study by the U.S. Department of Justice con­cern­ing the fed­er­al death penal­ty. Released in September, the study found that 80% of the cas­es sub­mit­ted for fed­er­al death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion involved minor­i­ty defen­dants, and that 80% of the resul­tant fed­er­al death row was also made up of minor­i­ty defen­dants. In addi­tion, the study high­light­ed the fact that a few regions of the coun­try were respon­si­ble for a dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high num­ber of fed­er­al cas­es, while oth­er major areas produced none. 

There were many promi­nent events involv­ing the death penal­ty this past year. Among them were: 

January

• On January 31, Illinois Governor George Ryan declared a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, pend­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. Governor Ryan’s mora­to­ri­um received praise from President Clinton and lead­ers around the coun­try, who urged oth­er state gov­er­nors to exam­ine their death penalty systems.
• January-March Eighth Amendment chal­lenges to elec­tro­cu­tion as a method of exe­cu­tion led to changes in Florida and Georgia. In January, as the U.S. Supreme Court con­sid­ered hear­ing argu­ments regard­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Florida’s elec­tric chair, the state switched its pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion to lethal injec­tion, ren­der­ing the case moot. Alabama and Nebraska remain the only states that use elec­tro­cu­tion as their sole method of exe­cu­tion. During Florida’s spe­cial leg­isla­tive ses­sion, they also attempt­ed to severe­ly cut the appeals process for cap­i­tal cas­es, but that bill was declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the Florida Supreme Court.

February

• A Gallup Poll was released that found the per­cent­age of sup­port for the death penal­ty in America has been grad­u­al­ly decreas­ing and is now at 66%, its low­est lev­el in 19 years. This decline in sup­port was mir­rored in oth­er recent polls in such states as Illinois, Minnesota, Kentucky, North Carolina, and New Jersey. As sup­port for the death penal­ty has dropped, and the nation has become more aware of the prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, an increas­ing num­ber of abo­li­tion, mora­to­ri­um, and death penal­ty reform bills have been intro­duced through­out the nation.
• On February 11, Senator Patrick Leahy intro­duced the Innocence Protection Act of 2000 in the U.S. Congress, a bill that would allow DNA test­ing for all inmates and improve the sys­tem of rep­re­sen­ta­tion for those fac­ing the death penal­ty. Other pro­vi­sions include com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ly con­vict­ed inmates released from death row, and the oblig­a­tion to instruct jurors of the pos­si­ble sen­tenc­ing option of life with­out parole, where applic­a­ble. The bill was re-intro­duced on June 11, with Republican and Democratic co-sponsorship.

March-May

• In March, the New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty. In May, the New Hampshire Senate also passed the bill. Although the con­ser­v­a­tive New Hampshire leg­is­la­ture became the first in over 20 years to vote to repeal the death penal­ty, the bill was vetoed by Democratic Governor Jeanne Shaheen.

• On May 11, the cre­ation of the National Committee to Prevent Wrongful Executions was announced. The group is com­prised of Republicans and Democrats, both for and against the death penal­ty, who share a com­mon con­cern that inno­cent peo­ple are at risk of exe­cu­tion because of fail­ures in the legal sys­tem. Among its mem­bers are William Broaddus (the for­mer Attorney General of Virginia), Beth Wilkinson (one of the chief pros­e­cu­tors from the Oklahoma City bomb­ing case), and Abner Mikva (for­mer Chief Justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit). The group, co-chaired by for­mer Florida Supreme Court Justice Gerald Kogan, will inves­ti­gate cur­rent crim­i­nal jus­tice prac­tices and pro­ce­dures, as well as cas­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in cap­i­tal cas­es from around the country. 
  

June

• On June 12, Professor James Liebman of Columbia University Law School released a com­pre­hen­sive study of the death penal­ty report­ing that courts found seri­ous mis­takes in 2/​3 of all cap­i­tal cas­es. The study found that the most com­mon errors were incom­pe­tent rep­re­sen­ta­tion by defense attor­neys and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. Veteran polit­i­cal jour­nal­ist David Broder of the Washington Post cit­ed the Liebman study as one of the out­stand­ing pieces of social research that deci­sive­ly affect the course of the policy debate.
• On June 23, Gary Graham was exe­cut­ed in Texas, despite vocif­er­ous claims that he was inno­cent. Graham was 17 when he was charged with the 1981 rob­bery and shoot­ing out­side a Houston super­mar­ket. He was con­vict­ed pri­mar­i­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of one wit­ness, who said she saw the killer’s face for a few sec­onds through her car wind­shield, from a dis­tance of 30 – 40 feet. Two oth­er wit­ness­es who said Graham was not the killer were not inter­viewed by Graham’s court appointed attorney. 

July

• On July 11, the American Bar Association​’s new President, Martha Barnett, urged the legal pro­fes­sion to sup­port a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. ​“I am putting togeth­er a call for action,” said Barnett, ask­ing the nation’s lawyers to sup­port the ABA’s 1997 res­o­lu­tion call­ing for the sus­pen­sion of the death penal­ty. She also cit­ed racial bias, and the exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly retard­ed and juve­nile offend­ers as prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. (NY Times, 7/​11/​00)
  

September

• On September 12, a review of the fed­er­al death penal­ty by the United States Department of Justice found numer­ous racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties. The report revealed that 80% of the cas­es sub­mit­ted by fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors for death penal­ty review in the past five years have involved racial minori­ties as defen­dants. In more than half of those cas­es, the defen­dant was African-American. Attorney General Janet Reno said she was ​“sore­ly trou­bled” by the results of the report and has ordered United States Attorneys to help explain the racial and eth­nic dis­par­i­ties.
  The report also found that 40% of the 682 cas­es sent to the Justice Department for approval to seek the death penal­ty were filed by only five juris­dic­tions. (NY Times, 9/12,13/00)
• In response to the release of the Justice Department’s report, Senator Russ Feingold intro­duced the Federal Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2000. The bill would impose a mora­to­ri­um on fed­er­al exe­cu­tions pend­ing a review of the fed­er­al death penalty system.

October

• When DNA tests con­firmed his inno­cence after 17 years in prison, includ­ing9 years on death row, Earl Washington was grant­ed an absolute par­don by Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore for the 1982 rape and mur­der of a Culpeper County woman. Washington, who suf­fers from men­tal retar­da­tion, was cleared when DNA tests showed that he did not rape the vic­tim.
  Washington’s exon­er­a­tion marks the first time in Virginia that an inno­cent death row inmate has been cleared, and is the 88^th in the nation since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed. Washington was the 9^th inmate to be exon­er­at­ed of a cap­i­tal crime based on DNA testing.
• On October 20, William Nieves was freed from death row when a Philadelphia jury acquit­ted him of a 1992 mur­der. Nieves was con­vict­ed in 1994, but main­tained his inno­cence. In 1997, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that Nieves was inad­e­quate­ly rep­re­sent­ed at his first tri­al and grant­ed him a new tri­al. Nieves was the 89^th per­son freed from death row since 1973, and the 5^th in 2000.

November

• Just hours before his exe­cu­tion on November 22^nd, North Carolina death row inmate Marcus Carter had his sen­tence com­mut­ed to life in prison with­out parole by Governor Jim Hunt. Hunt stat­ed that he would not allow the exe­cu­tion to go for­ward, cit­ing ques­tions about the fair­ness of Carter’s tri­al. This was the sec­ond com­mu­ta­tion of a death sen­tence in 2000. Earlier in the year, Governor Parris Glendening of Maryland com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Eugene Colvin-el to life without parole.
• On November 27, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by Texas death row inmate John Paul Penry, whose exe­cu­tion had been stayed by the Court on November 16. Penry’s case is syn­ony­mous with the debate about exe­cut­ing defen­dants with men­tal retar­da­tion, and the Court said it will use the case to clar­i­fy how much oppor­tu­ni­ty jurors in death penal­ty cas­es must have to con­sid­er the defen­dan­t’s men­tal capac­i­ty. Penry’s I.Q. has been test­ed between 50 and 63, and he has the men­tal abil­i­ties of a six-year old.

December

• Citing the find­ings of a Justice Department study show­ing racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in the fed­er­al death penal­ty, President Clinton grant­ed a six month reprieve to Juan Raul Garza, who was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on December 12. ​“I am not sat­is­fied that, giv­en the uncer­tain­ty that exists, it is appro­pri­ate to go for­ward with an exe­cu­tion in a case that may impli­cate the very issues at the cen­ter of the uncer­tain­ty,” said President Clinton. (NY Times, 12/​8/​00) Considerable oppo­si­tion to the exe­cu­tion had been expressed by major civ­il rights lead­ers, reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions, and legal experts from around the country.
• Texas set the record for the most exe­cu­tions by a sin­gle state in a year when it exe­cut­ed its 40^th inmate in 2000. Twenty-four out of the 38 death penal­ty states had no exe­cu­tions this year.
• Another death row inmate, Frank Lee Smith, was exon­er­at­ed in December after DNA test­ing, but Smith died on death row of can­cer before he was cleared. Smith spent 14 years on death row and came close to exe­cu­tion. Florida has had 20 death row inmates exon­er­at­ed since 1973, 50% more than in Illinois, which has imposed a mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions. This was the 90^th exon­er­a­tion of a death row inmate and the 6^th this year.
• Finally, and fit­ting­ly, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, issued a call for a world­wide mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty on December 18 after receiv­ing a peti­tion signed by 3.2 mil­lion peo­ple seek­ing an end to exe­cu­tions. ​“The for­fei­ture of life is too absolute, too irre­versible,” he said, ​“for one human being to inflict it on anoth­er, even when backed by legal process. And I believe that future gen­er­a­tions, through­out the world, will come to agree.” (Wash. Post, 12/​19/​00)

The year 2000 pro­duced a series of devel­op­ments that dra­mat­i­cal­ly shift­ed the pub­lic’s atti­tude about the death penal­ty. Less than a decade ago politi­cians were call­ing for speed­i­er exe­cu­tions and a broad­er use of the death penal­ty, but today they are respond­ing to a pub­lic demand for greater assur­ances that the death penal­ty be admin­is­tered accu­rate­ly and fair­ly, if it is to con­tin­ue at all.

The often polar­ized debate about the death penal­ty has moved from a con­ser­v­a­tive ver­sus lib­er­al divide to one in which greater num­bers are trou­bled by the increas­ing­ly dis­turb­ing reports about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. Innocent peo­ple being dis­cov­ered on death row, the exces­sive zeal in which some cap­i­tal cas­es have been pur­sued despite coun­ter­vail­ing evi­dence, and the unfair­ness of a pun­ish­ment which seems to be decid­ed, or at least influ­enced, by race, by geog­ra­phy or by the lot­tery of being assigned an inef­fec­tive attor­ney, have led to a con­clu­sion that the sys­tem is broken.

Next year, states will be con­sid­er­ing a vari­ety of pro­pos­als for reform, for fur­ther study, for halt­ing exe­cu­tions, and even for abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty alto­geth­er. The pub­lic’s tol­er­ance for risk­ing inno­cent lives in order to pre­serve the death penal­ty has great­ly dimin­ished. The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has for some time been call­ing upon the U.S. to live up to its com­mit­ment to human rights by con­fronting the injus­tices of the death penal­ty. Now nation­al reli­gious lead­ers, civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions, and legal experts are join­ing with for­mer pro­po­nents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to call for a rad­i­cal re-think­ing of exe­cu­tions as a legit­i­mate form of pun­ish­ment in the U.S.