Studies

Death sen­tences have dropped sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the last few years in Texas accord­ing to a study by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The num­ber of death sen­tences is at a 35-year low as pros­e­cu­tors have pushed for few­er death sen­tences and juries have become less will­ing to impose them. Since 2005, defen­dants may receive a sen­tence of life with­out parole instead of the death penal­ty. Before this change, the only alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty in Texas…

Scott Phillips, a pro­fes­sor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver, recent­ly pub­lished a study that revealed dis­par­i­ties in who receives the death penal­ty inTexas. Phillips stud­ied the 504 death penal­ty cas­es that occurred between 1992 and 1999 in Harris County (Houston and sur­round­ing areas). Harris County is the largest juris­dic­tion in the United States to use a court-appoint­ment sys­tem for select­ing lawyers to defend…

The annu­al crime report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed a decline in the nation­al mur­der rate. The rate dropped 4.7% in 2008 com­pared to 2007. Despite a region­al decline, the South still has the high­est mur­der rate among the four geo­graph­ic regions: 6.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple, high­er than the nation­al rate of 5.4. The Northeast still main­tains the low­est mur­der rate at 4.2. There were 16,272 mur­ders or non-neg­li­gent manslaugh­ters in…

A recent op-ed in the Florida Times-Union point­ed to con­tin­u­ing prob­lems in Florida’s death penal­ty sys­tem despite pri­or rec­om­men­da­tions for change in an American Bar Association report three years ago. The arti­cle was writ­ten by Raoul Cantero III, a for­mer Florida Supreme Court jus­tice appoint­ed by Gov. Jeb Bush, and Mark Schlakman, a senior pro­gram direc­tor for Florida State University’s Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. The authors state…

A recent inves­ti­ga­ton by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram uncov­ered a series of mis­takes by med­ical exam­in­ers in Texas. ​“Medical exam­in­ers have goofed up eye col­or and gen­der. They’ve made mis­takes on the loca­tions of scars or tat­toos, described gall­blad­ders and appen­dix­es that had long since been removed – even con­fused one body for anoth­er,” not­ed the sto­ry. Webb County Chief Medical Examiner Corinne Stern was crit­i­cized for an autop­sy she per­formed on an infant while…

A new data­base of death row pris­on­ers in the U.S. is now avail­able on DPIC’s Web site. The data­base con­tains cur­rent sortable and search­able infor­ma­tion on death row inmates in each state, includ­ing their name, race, coun­ty, and date of birth. The infor­ma­tion in the data­base is also editable, mean­ing that indi­vid­u­als with knowl­edge of death row inmates may change or add new infor­ma­tion. This new data­base may be a use­ful tool in explor­ing how the death penal­ty is applied.