Studies

The American Bar Association has released a new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2015, exam­in­ing major issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The chap­ter devot­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was writ­ten by Ronald Tabak, an attor­ney at Skadden Arps and board mem­ber of the Death Penalty Information Center. Tabak presents evi­dence of the declin­ing use of the death penal­ty in death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly not­ing the grow­ing geo­graph­ic iso­la­tion of the death penal­ty. He includes recent devel­op­ments, such as the mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Pennsylvania…

A new study to be pub­lished in the University of Denver Law Review shows that whether pros­e­cu­tors seek the death penal­ty in Colorado ​“depends to an alarm­ing extent on the race and geo­graph­ic loca­tion of the defen­dant.” The study — based upon 10 years of data col­lect­ed by attor­ney Meg Beardsley and University of Denver law pro­fes­sors Sam Kamin and Justin Marceau and soci­ol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Scott Phillips — shows that race and place are sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant pre­dic­tors of whether pros­e­cu­tors will seek the death penal­ty in Colorado and that prosecutors…

Two new stud­ies sug­gest that a defen­dan­t’s facial appear­ance pre­dicts whether he is sen­tenced to life or to death, regard­less of actu­al guilt or inno­cence. A study of Florida inmates pub­lished in the July 15 edi­tion of Psychological Science finds that the per­ceived degree of trust­wor­thi­ness of a defen­dan­t’s face pre­dict­ed which of the two sen­tences a defen­dant who has been con­vict­ed of mur­der ulti­mate­ly received. A fol­low-up study also showed that the link between per­ceived untrust­wor­thi­ness and the death penal­ty per­sist­ed even when study par­tic­i­pants viewed inno­cent peo­ple who…

A major­i­ty of Texas death row pris­on­ers who vol­un­tar­i­ly respond­ed to a recent sur­vey by the Texas Observer report­ed hav­ing expe­ri­enced abuse or oth­er trau­ma as chil­dren. The sur­vey results are con­sis­tent with the find­ings of aca­d­e­m­ic stud­ies that have repeat­ed­ly doc­u­ment­ed high rates of child­hood abuse among those sen­tenced to death. The Texas Observer sur­vey found that 22 of the 41 death row pris­on­ers who respond­ed (54%) vol­un­teered hav­ing expe­ri­enced ​“vio­lent or abu­sive” child­hoods. An addi­tion­al nine death row pris­on­ers (22%) described their child­hoods as hav­ing been ​“hard,” typically…

A new study by North Carolina’s Center for Death Penalty Litigation exam­ines the finan­cial and human costs of cas­es in which, ​“pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty despite a clear lack of evi­dence, result­ing in acquit­tal or dis­missal of charges.”

The Spring 2015 update to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s pub­li­ca­tion, Death Row, USA, reports that 3,002 men and women were on death rows across the United States as of April 1, 2015. This reflects a con­tin­u­ing decline in the size of death row, down 13% since Spring 2005, when 3,452 peo­ple were on America’s death rows. Several states saw sig­nif­i­cant drops in their death row pop­u­la­tions over that peri­od while car­ry­ing out few or no exe­cu­tions: Pennsylvania dropped from 230 to 184 (no exe­cu­tions), North Carolina fell from 197…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row USA, which reports state-by-state infor­ma­tion on death rows across the coun­try, reflects a more than 12% decline in the size of death row nation­wide. The Winter 2015 edi­tion reports that 3,019 inmates were on America’s death rows as of December 31, 2014, down 12.6% from the 3,455 men and women report­ed ten years ear­li­er. The racial demo­graph­ics of death row are now 43% white, 42% black, and 13% Latino/​Latina. California con­tin­ued to have the largest death row, with 743…

Two recent reports from Ohio high­light­ed the decline in the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in that state. On March 30, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office released its annu­al report on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Attorney General’s report not­ed three new death sen­tences, one com­mu­ta­tion, and one exe­cu­tion in Ohio in 2014, down from the state’s peak of 17 death sen­tences in both 1995 and 1996. It also report­ed that Ohio juries have imposed four or few­er death sen­tences in each of the last four years. On the same day, Ohioans to…

Executions around the world declined by 22% last year, accord­ing to Amnesty International​’s 2014 annu­al report on death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions. The report — released on April 1 — indi­cates that an esti­mat­ed 607 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed world­wide in 2014, com­pared to 778 in 2013. The glob­al totals do not include exe­cu­tions in China, where data on the death penal­ty is con­sid­ered a state secret. On a region­al lev­el, Amnesty report­ed notable declines in Sub-Saharan Africa, where both the total num­ber of exe­cu­tions and the num­ber of coun­tries car­ry­ing out…

A new study from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finds that the most like­ly out­come for a cap­i­tal case once a death sen­tence has been imposed is that the defen­dan­t’s con­vic­tion or sen­tence will be reversed on appeal. Execution is only the third most like­ly outcome.