Studies

A new com­pre­hen­sive study of 200 inno­cence cas­es, all involv­ing peo­ple who were exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence, found that erro­neous iden­ti­fi­ca­tion by eye­wit­ness­es, faulty foren­sic evi­dence, inac­cu­rate infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, and false con­fes­sions were the key prob­lems that led to these seri­ous mis­takes. The research — which includ­ed 14 death penal­ty cas­es — also found that courts per­formed mis­er­ably in iden­ti­fy­ing cas­es of inno­cence, and that those exon­er­at­ed were more like­ly to be members…

Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity is a new report by The Sentencing Project that exam­ines the racial and eth­nic dynam­ics of incar­cer­a­tion in the U.S. with tables by state and by race. The report notes that African Americans are incar­cer­at­ed at near­ly 6 times the rate of whites and Hispanics are incar­cer­at­ed at near­ly dou­ble the rate of whites. One in nine (11.7%) African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 is cur­rent­ly incar­cer­at­ed in a prison…

A new report from the Charlotte School of Law on men­tal ill­ness and the death penal­ty reveals that obsta­cles entrenched with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem impede efforts to iden­ti­fy those with severe men­tal ill­ness and treat them fair­ly. The report, ​“Mental Illness and the Death Penalty in North Carolina: A Diagnostic Approach,” is based on a 2006 sym­po­sium host­ed by the law school. It exam­ines sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies of men­tal ill­ness and pro­vides an overview of laws estab­lished to protect those…

Since 2000, 50 peo­ple have had their death sen­tences reversed in Pennsylvania as courts found seri­ous legal errors in the inmates’ orig­i­nal tri­als. The num­ber of rever­sals near­ly equaled the num­ber of peo­ple added to the state’s death row dur­ing the past 7 years and have come from a vari­ety of courts. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued about 20% of the rever­sals, 50% of the death sen­tences were over­turned by state tri­al judges dur­ing the next stage of review, and anoth­er 30% of the…

The fed­er­al death penal­ty impacts racial minori­ties dif­fer­ent­ly than it does whites accord­ing to a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union. The report, The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty, notes that defen­dants of col­or make up the major­i­ty of the fed­er­al death row. And the risk of a case being autho­rized for the death penal­ty is 84% high­er in cas­es where the vic­tim is white, regard­less of the race of the defen­dant. The report pointed to…

A recent study con­duct­ed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has revealed that Texas is almost last among states in spend­ing on men­tal health ser­vices and per­forms poor­ly in oth­er men­tal health areas. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas ranked 47^th in the nation in per-capi­ta spend­ing on men­tal health ser­vices, and received a grade of ​“D” for infor­ma­tion access and a grade of ​“C”…

By a vote of 79 – 14, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ing a study com­mis­sion to exam­ine the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. A sim­i­lar mea­sure unan­i­mous­ly passed the state’s Senate in May, just one month after the American Bar Association issued a report find­ing that the state was not in full com­pli­ance with most of the bench­marks estab­lished to guar­an­tee a fair death penal­ty sys­tem. The new com­mis­sion will con­sist of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the…

According to a new report and opin­ion poll issued today by the Death Penalty Information Center, the American pub­lic is los­ing con­fi­dence in the death penal­ty as doubts about inno­cence and the pur­pose of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment increase. The report, A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts About the Death Penalty, is based on a recent nation­al opin­ion poll con­duct­ed by RT Strategies and com­mis­sioned by DPIC. ​“Public con­fi­dence in the death penal­ty has clear­ly erod­ed over the past 10 years,…

With a num­ber of exe­cu­tions of inmates who have waived their appeals approach­ing in the U.S., Amnesty International has released a new report, ​“Prisoner-assist­ed homi­cide – more ​‘vol­un­teer’ exe­cu­tions loom.” The report address­es the fact that about 12% of exe­cu­tions in the U.S. since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed have been of inmates who gave up appeals that would have extend­ed their time on death row. The report looks at some of the pos­si­ble rea­sons for the large…