Studies

On January 7, the Boston Bar Association, rep­re­sent­ing more than 10,000 lawyers, released a state­ment oppos­ing the use of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. The Association already had a long­stand­ing posi­tion against the death penal­ty in state cas­es. Paul T. Dacier (pic­tured), the President of the Boston Bar, said, ​“Without equiv­o­ca­tion, the death penal­ty has no place in the fair admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and makes no sense on a prac­ti­cal lev­el.” The orga­ni­za­tion’s new stance was based on a review of the death penal­ty by a work­ing group chaired by retired…

Some legal and psy­chi­atric experts have con­clud­ed that vet­er­ans with post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der should be inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. In an arti­cle in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, men­tal health experts Drs. Hal Wortzel and David Arciniegas wrote, ​“The tragedy of the wound­ed com­bat vet­er­an who faces exe­cu­tion by the nation he has served seems to be an avoid­able one, and we, as a soci­ety, should take action to ensure that it does not hap­pen.” A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation esti­mat­ed that about…

A new report from Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights col­lects the sto­ries of fam­i­lies who have had a loved one mur­dered who was in law enforce­ment. The fam­i­lies dis­cuss the pres­sure they faced to demand the death penal­ty as pun­ish­ment, their efforts to pre­vent more vio­lence, and their evolv­ing views on the death penal­ty. Kathy Dillon, whose father was mur­dered in 1974 while on duty as a New York State Trooper, said, “[I]n the case of my father’s mur­der, the death penal­ty was in place in New York State,…

In a new report released on December 3, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) called for police depart­ments to adopt new guide­lines to reduce the num­ber of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The chiefs’ rec­om­men­da­tions include reforms of line­up pro­ce­dures, video­tap­ing of wit­ness inter­views, and for­mal­iz­ing the review of inno­cence claims. The IACP worked with the Justice Department and the Innocence Project to iden­ti­fy ways to reduce poten­tial sources of error and bias. Walter A. McNiel, police chief of Quincy, Florida, and past pres­i­dent of IACP, said, ​“At the end of…

Radley Balko, writ­ing in the Huffington Post, has exam­ined more close­ly some of the coun­ties iden­ti­fied in DPIC’s recent report, The 2% Death Penalty, as using the death penal­ty the most. Balko found that many of those high-use coun­ties have a pat­tern of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and oth­er prob­lems. For exam­ple, Philadelphia County has sent more inmates to death row than any oth­er coun­ty in Pennsylvania. However, a study of crim­i­nal cas­es over­turned in the state because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct found over 60% of the cas­es came from Philadelphia. Duval County,…

Medical experts are con­cerned that untried lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures in some states could cause pro­longed, painful deaths. Ohio will try a pro­ce­dure nev­er used before in an exe­cu­tion on November 14 when it plans to inject a com­bi­na­tion of the seda­tive mida­zo­lam and the painkiller hydro­mor­phone. According to Dr. Jonathan Groner, a pro­fes­sor of clin­i­cal surgery at Ohio State University College of Medicine, a hydro­mor­phone over­dose can cause painful side effects, includ­ing an extreme burn­ing sen­sa­tion, seizures, hal­lu­ci­na­tion, pan­ic attacks, vom­it­ing, and mus­cle pain. He said, ​“You’re basi­cal­ly rely­ing on…

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Federation for Human Rights recent­ly released an analy­sis of the death penal­ty in California and Louisiana. The report con­clud­ed that those states’ appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ​“vio­lates U.S. oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tion­al human rights law to pre­vent and pro­hib­it dis­crim­i­na­tion and tor­ture, cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment.” Researchers con­duct­ed inter­views with many of those involved in the legal sys­tem and exam­ined data on charg­ing, sen­tenc­ing, and exe­cu­tions. They found that racial dis­par­i­ties in the death penal­ty in both states con­sti­tut­ed discrimination.

A recent Gallup poll found the low­est lev­el of sup­port for the death penal­ty in America since 1972. Gallup’s October poll mea­sured Americans’ abstract sup­port at 60%, a 20-per­cent­age point decline from 1994, when 80% of respon­dents were in favor of the death penal­ty for those con­vict­ed of mur­der. Support for the death penal­ty dif­fered sharply among those who iden­ti­fied them­selves with a polit­i­cal par­ty: 81% of Republicans sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, while only 47% of Democrats and 60% of Independents favored it. However, sup­port among all three groups has…

In a four-part series on the con­duct of pros­e­cu­tors in cap­i­tal cas­es, The Arizona Republic exam­ined alle­ga­tions by appel­late attor­neys that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct occurred in near­ly half of the state’s cap­i­tal cas­es since 2002.