Studies

Scott Phillips, a soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at the University of Denver, pub­lished a study last month in the Law & Society Review focus­ing on the impo­si­tion of death sen­tences in rela­tion to the vic­tim’s social sta­tus. Phillips stud­ied cap­i­tal cas­es in Harris County (Houston), Texas, between 1992 and 1999 and found that the social sta­tus of the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing mur­der had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on whether the death…

The Ohio Attorney General​’s Office recent­ly released its annu­al Capital Crimes Report, ana­lyz­ing the state’s death penal­ty cas­es and death row pop­u­la­tion. In 2009, there was only one death sen­tence hand­ed down in Ohio, mir­ror­ing a nation­wide trend of declin­ing death sen­tences. This was the fewest death sen­tences in a year since Ohio rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty. The report indi­cat­ed that over half of the cur­rent death row population…

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund recent­ly released its Fall 2009 edi­tion of Death Row USA, a report detail­ing death row pop­u­la­tions across the United States. According to the report, California, Florida and Texas con­tin­ue to lead the nation in the num­ber of death row inmates, with California (694) hav­ing a death row pop­u­la­tion almost twice as large as either Florida (395) or Texas (339). In addi­tion, while Florida’s and Texas’ death…

A new report released by the ACLU of Northern California reveals that only three coun­ties – Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside – account­ed for 83% of the state’s death sen­tences in 2009. Los Angeles County, with 13 death sen­tences, was the lead­ing death penal­ty coun­ty in the entire coun­try last year. According to the report, California, with the largest death row in the coun­try, spends $137 mil­lion annu­al­ly on the death penal­ty, while the state is cutting back…

Amnesty International recent­ly released its annu­al glob­al report on the death penal­ty, cov­er­ing exe­cu­tions and death sen­tences world­wide in 2009. The report states that more than 700 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in 18 coun­tries in 2009, and at least 2,000 peo­ple were sen­tenced to death. One hun­dred and sev­en­­ty-nine (179) coun­tries had no exe­cu­tions last year. Countries with the high­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions were Iran (with at least 388…

Most of those orig­i­nal­ly con­demned to death in North Carolina even­tu­al­ly received less­er sen­tences when their cas­es were con­clud­ed, accord­ing to Professor Frank Baumgartner, a researcher at the University of North Carolina. Many of those sen­tenced to death received a new tri­al because their first tri­al was seri­ous­ly flawed. At their sub­se­quent tri­als, the vast major­i­ty were sen­tenced to a pun­ish­ment less than death,…

Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas recent­ly pub­lished a study on whether exe­cu­tions deter homi­cides using state pan­el date and employ­ing well-known econo­met­ric pro­ce­dures for pan­el analy­sis. The authors found​“no empir­i­cal sup­port for the argu­ment that the exis­tence or appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty deters prospec­tive offend­ers from com­mit­ting homi­cide.” The study was pub­lished in the jour­nal of Criminology and Public…

A recent study pub­lished by a Duke University econ­o­mist revealed North Carolina could save $11 mil­lion annu­al­ly if it dropped the death penal­ty. Philip J. Cook, a pro­fes­sor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, cal­cu­lat­ed the extra state costs of the death penal­ty dur­ing fis­cal years 2005 and 2006. He cal­cu­lat­ed over $21 mil­lion worth of expens­es that would have been saved if the death penal­ty had been…

Twenty-sev­en peo­ple were exon­er­at­ed and released from prison this year, includ­ing some who had been on death row, accord­ing to a new report from The Innocence Project, a nation­al lit­i­ga­tion and pub­lic pol­i­cy orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to exon­er­at­ing wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed peo­ple. The 27 exonerees served a com­bined 421 years in prison for crimes they did not com­mit. The exon­er­a­tions occurred through the work of the Innocence Project…

On December 4, the New Hampshire Commission to Study the Death Penalty held a hear­ing in Concord to exam­ine the cost of the death penaty in the state. The twen­­ty-two mem­ber Commission, led by retired Judge Walter Murphy, has been charged with con­sid­er­ing sev­er­al issues, includ­ing whether the death penal­ty is a deter­rent, if it is arbi­trar­i­ly applied, and if it cov­ers the appro­pri­ate crimes. The Commission is con­sid­er­ing alternatives to…