Studies

An inves­ti­ga­tion by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes has cast doubt on at least 250 crim­i­nal cas­es in which the defen­dant was con­vict­ed based on FBI bul­let-lead test evi­dence. Since the ear­ly 1960s, the FBI has used a tech­nique called com­par­a­tive bul­let-lead analy­sis on an esti­mat­ed 2,500 cas­es, many of which were homi­cide cas­es pros­e­cut­ed at state and local lev­els. Comparative bul­let-lead analy­sis, based on the assump­tion that all bul­lets in one batch will be chem­i­cal­ly sim­i­lar, examines…

In a recent inves­ti­ga­tion pub­lished in The Dallas Morning News, researchers found that 120 defen­dants con­vict­ed of mur­der in Texas between 2000 and 2006 received only a sen­tence of pro­ba­tion. In Dallas County, twice as many con­vict­ed mur­der­ers were sen­tenced to pro­ba­tion as were sent to death row. Typically in these cas­es, a defen­dant pleads guilty to mur­der, receives pro­ba­tion, and, with good behav­ior, can have the mur­der charged wiped from his or her record. The News began…

Following the release of a new study pub­lished in the Journal of Adolescent Health con­cern­ing the fail­ure of deter­rence in drug use, med­ical experts com­ment­ed that deter­rence also fails in the area of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“It is very clear that deter­rents are not effec­tive in the area of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” said Dr. Jonathan Groner, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of surgery at Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health who research­es the deter­rent effect of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“The…

A for­mer Tennessee Attorney General, W.J. Cody, and a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Gilbert Merritt, both mem­bers of the American Bar Association’s Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Team, called on pol­i­cy­mak­ers to thor­ough­ly review the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws and imple­ment sig­nif­i­cant changes that address con­cerns such as wrong­ful con­vic­tions, meet­ing the needs of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, and ensur­ing that the state com­plies with min­i­mum stan­dards required for fair­ness in capital…

The FBI’s recent­ly released Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States, 2006, revealed that the mur­der rate in 2006 rose slight­ly from 5.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple in 2005 to 5.7 in 2006, but was at the same rate as in 1999 when use of the death penal­ty start­ed to show marked declines. There has been lit­tle change in the mur­der rate in the inter­ven­ing years when death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, and the size of death row all declined. As in pre­vi­ous years, the South had the highest…

According to a new report from a team of inves­ti­ga­tors spon­sored by the American Bar Association (ABA), flaws in Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty sys­tem are so per­va­sive that the state risks exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. ​“The prob­lems found in this assess­ment strike at the very heart of Pennsylvania’s jus­tice sys­tem,” stat­ed ABA pres­i­dent-elect H. Thomas Wells, Jr. The five-mem­ber Pennsylvania assess­ment team that con­duct­ed the review urged a series of impor­tant death penal­ty reforms designed to…

MORE STAYS GRANTED On October 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to Daniel Siebert, who was to be exe­cut­ed in Alabama on Oct. 25. On Oct. 22, the Georgia Supreme Court grant­ed anoth­er stay, this time to Curtis Osborne. These stays are relat­ed to the issue of lethal injec­tion as the U.S. Supreme Court con­sid­ers the mat­ter. ​“A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH:” NEWS SERIES REVEALS ARBITRARY DEATH PENALTY…

A new report released by Amnesty International, Execution by lethal injec­tion — a quar­ter cen­tu­ry of state poi­son­ing, calls on med­ical pro­fes­sion­als to refuse to par­tic­i­pate in exe­cu­tions and details ongo­ing con­cerns about cur­rent lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols that could result in inmates feel­ing excru­ci­at­ing pain dur­ing their exe­cu­tions. ​“Governments are putting doc­tors and nurs­es in an impos­si­ble posi­tion by ask­ing them to do some­thing that goes against their eth­i­cal oath. … Medical…

The Justice Project has released two new pol­i­cy reviews about jail­house snitch tes­ti­mo­ny and expand­ed dis­cov­ery in crim­i­nal cas­es, both top­ics that are part of the orga­ni­za­tion’s broad­er National Agenda for Reform ini­tia­tive. Jailhouse Snitch Testimony: A Policy Review offers rec­om­men­da­tions and solu­tions for improv­ing the stan­dards of admis­si­bil­i­ty of in-cus­tody infor­mant or ​“snitch tes­ti­mo­ny.” The review includes an overview of cur­rent snitch tes­ti­mo­ny laws, case stud­ies, infor­ma­tion about…

According to a new study released by the American Bar Association, Ohio’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is so flawed that it should be sus­pend­ed while the state con­ducts a thor­ough review of its fair­ness and accu­ra­cy. The study, con­duct­ed by a 10-mem­ber pan­el of Ohio attor­neys appoint­ed by the ABA, found that the state’s death penal­ty is prone to racial and geo­graph­ic imbal­ances and that it meets only four of the 93 ABA rec­om­men­da­tions to ensure a fair capital…