Studies

Items: 321 — 330

Nov 24, 2009

NEW VOICES: Kentucky Public Defenders Call for Moratorium on Executions

On November 23, Kentucky Public Advocate Ed Monahan and Louisville Metro Chief Public Defender Dan Goyette called on the gov­er­nor and the state’s Attorney General to stay all exe­cu­tions until an assess­ment team formed by the American Bar Association can objec­tive­ly review the state’s death penal­ty. Monahan and Goyette wrote let­ters ask­ing Attorney General Jack Conway not to request any fur­ther exe­cu­tion war­rants and asking…

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Nov 18, 2009

Death Sentences Declining in Texas

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…

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Nov 10, 2009

The Death Penalty in the State of Washington

The Walla-Walla Union Bulletin is focus­ing on the state’s death penal­ty in a 4‑part series enti­tled, ​“Executing Justice.” The series exam­ines issues such as the costs of the death penal­ty, arbi­trari­ness, and the appeals process. Washington cur­rent­ly has eight men on death row, and has not had an exe­cu­tion since 2001. In almost 30 years, there has been only one non-con­sen­su­al exe­cu­tion. Four defen­dants have been exe­cut­ed since the death penalty was…

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Nov 06, 2009

STUDIES: Disparate Administration of the Military Death Penalty

A recent study of the mil­i­tary death penal­ty by Professor David Baldus revealed dis­par­i­ties depend­ing on whether the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing crime was also a mem­ber of the mil­i­tary or was a civil­ian. The paper was co-authored by Professors Catherine Grosso and George Woodworth and will be pub­lished by the Michigan Journal of Law Reform. The authors note that despite a 1984 exec­u­tive order that ​“defined death eli­gi­ble mur­der in the armed forces…

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Oct 28, 2009

NEW RESOURCES: The Status of the Death Penalty in Countries Comprising the European Security Area

The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the world’s largest region­al secu­ri­ty orga­ni­za­tion com­prised of 56 States includ­ing the U.S., recent­ly pub­lished a 2009 Background Paper on The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area. It was pre­pared by the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), and updates the 2008 back­ground paper of the same title. The 2009 paper high­lights the changes in sta­tus of the death penalty in…

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Oct 20, 2009

STUDIES: Disparities in Legal Representation in Harris County, 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…

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Oct 15, 2009

Gallup Poll: Support for Death Penalty Remains Near 25-Year Low

The lat­est Gallup Poll on the death penal­ty shows 65% of Americans sup­port the death penal­ty, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the 80% sup­port record­ed in 1994 and near the low­est sup­port of 64% in the past 25 years record­ed last year. Only 57% believe the death penal­ty is fair­ly applied, and 59% of Americans believe that an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed in the last five years. Gallup report­ed that sup­port for the death penal­ty is low­er if Americans are offered an explicit…

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Oct 13, 2009

STUDIES: FBI Uniform Crime Report Finds Murder Rates Declined in 2008

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…

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Oct 07, 2009

OPINION: Florida’s Death Penalty System Still ​‘Fraught with Problems’

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…

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Oct 02, 2009

STUDIES: Errors by Texas Medical Examiners Led to Wrongful Convictions

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…

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