Studies

Amnesty International report­ed that exe­cu­tions world­wide fell by more than 25% last year, down from 2,148 in 2005 to 1,591 in 2006. Of all known exe­cu­tions that took place in 2006, 91% were car­ried out in six coun­tries, China (1,010), Iran (177), Pakistan (82), Iraq (65), Sudan (65), and the United States (53). Amnesty notes that exe­cu­tions in China are treat­ed as state secrets, and there may have been as many as 8,000 exe­cu­tions. Last year, the Philippines became the 99^th…

Members of an American Bar Association Assessment Team have urged Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to extend the state’s cur­rent mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions so that a more thor­ough review of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws can be con­duct­ed. The sev­en-mem­ber team also offered 14 rec­om­men­da­tions to address prob­lems iden­ti­fied dur­ing their review of Tennessee’s death penal­ty. Racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in cap­i­tal cas­es, poor­ly trained defense attor­neys, heavy case­loads for…

A new sci­en­tif­ic study of 41 lethal injec­tions that took place in California and North Carolina dur­ing the past two decades revealed that two of the three drugs used to car­ry out these exe­cu­tions are not admin­is­tered in a way that reli­ably pro­duces death in the way intend­ed. The study, pub­lished in the Public Library of Science Journal, PLoS Medicine, found that inmates were giv­en a uni­form amount of anes­the­sia (sodi­um thiopen­tal) regard­less of their body weight or other…

A Cincinnati Enquirer exam­i­na­tion of death penal­ty deci­sions issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit revealed that judges appear to con­sis­tent­ly vote along par­ty lines, there­by inject­ing arbi­trari­ness into death penal­ty rul­ings. The judges do most of their work as mem­bers of ran­dom­ly select­ed three-judge pan­els. Sixteen judges are eli­gi­ble to sit on those pan­els, includ­ing nine Republican appointees and sev­en Democratic appointees. This means life-and-death…

A Cincinnati Enquirer inves­ti­ga­tion of Ohio cap­i­tal cas­es found that more death sen­tences are over­turned in the state because of mis­takes by defense lawyers than for any oth­er rea­son. Reporters with the Enquirer found that 15 peo­ple on Ohio’s death row won fed­er­al appeals dur­ing the past sev­en years based entire­ly or in part on the poor per­for­mance of their lawyers. ​“It’s a big, big prob­lem. The lawyers don’t have the where­with­al to put on a first-class defense,” observed Judge Gilbert…

Amnesty International has released a new report enti­tled ​“Justice Delayed and Justice Denied? Trials under the Military Commissions Act.” This report exam­ines whether pro­ceed­ings under the revised U.S. Military Commissions Act will com­ply with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, espe­cial­ly when the death penal­ty is sought. In par­tic­u­lar, it explores the rights of detainees under inter­na­tion­al human rights law, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution. (Amnesty International,…

Pennsylvania has con­vened a com­mis­sion of judges, pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, law enforce­ment offi­cers and vic­tims’ advo­cates to study the caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and make rec­om­men­da­tions for pre­vent­ing them in the state. Forensic errors, mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions and false con­fes­sions have led to wrong­ful con­vic­tions around the nation, includ­ing 9 peo­ple from Pennsylvania who have been exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence. The com­mis­sion of 40 mem­bers was sponsored…

The Justice Project, in con­junc­tion with The Justice Project Education Fund, has issued two com­pre­hen­sive pol­i­cy reviews designed to facil­i­tate com­mu­ni­ca­tion among local law enforce­ment agen­cies, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, prac­ti­tion­ers, and oth­ers who are con­cerned about the issues of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and the elec­tron­ic record­ing of cus­to­di­al inter­ro­ga­tions. The reviews exam­ine each of these issues and iden­ti­fy pit­falls and ​“best prac­tices” with the lat­est research behind them.