Studies

LETHAL INJECTIONS: News & Developments Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited Constitution Project Issues Updated Capital Punishment Reform Recommendations The Constitution Project’s blue-ribbon Death Penalty Initiative has released an updated set of guiding principles for death penalty reform. “Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited” identifies specific improvements to address problems such as arbitrariness, race, ineffectiveness of counsel, wrongful convictions, and crime…

The American Bar Association’s Criminial Justice Section has released a new report on preventing wrongful convictions. The report, Achieving Justice: Freeing the Innocent, Convicting the Guilty, includes commentary and resolutions that addresses topics such as false confessions, eyewitness identification procedures, use of forensic evidence, jailhouse informants, and compensation for the wrongfully convicted. The report is the result of a three-year ABA effort led by an ad hoc group of defense…

The Capital Case Data Project of the American Judicature Society announced their count of 125 new death sentences in 2005, one less than in 2004. In addition, AJS counted 14 death sentences imposed through new sentence proceedings after appellate reversals. Those sentenced to death included 63 white defendants, 57 black defendants, and 15 Hispanics. The largest number of death sentences were imposed in California (19) and Florida (16). Texas had 14 death sentences, down considerably from 24 in…

A new report issued by Amnesty International examines the issue of mental illness and the death penalty. The report notes that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions to halt the executions of juvenile offenders and those with mental retardation left a question mark over another category of offender, the mentally ill. In the report, Amnesty asks: “If the diminished culpability associated with youth and mental retardation render the death penalty an excessive punishment when used against offenders…

The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row USA shows an 8% decline in the country’s death row population during the past 5 years, down from 3,652 in 2000 to 3,373 at the end of 2005. According to the report, California continues to have the nation’s largest death row population (649), followed by Texas (409), Florida (388), Pennsylvania (231), and Ohio (196). Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 45% white, 42% black, and 10% latino/latina. Of states…

An article in the Science section of the N.Y. Times reports on research conducted by psychologists at Stanford University on the effects of executions on prison staff. After interviewing nearly 250 prison staff members from three states, the researchers concluded that those who participate in execution teams exhibit high levels of “moral disengagement,” which one of the researchers described as the “ability to selectively engage and disengage our moral standards.” The study found that the…

The Constitution Project’s blue-ribbon Death Penalty Initiative released a new report, “Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited,” an updated set of guiding principles for reform of death penalty systems. The group is comprised of current and former FBI officials, state attorneys general, religious leaders, victims of crime, academics, legal experts, and community leaders. They identified specific improvements to address problems such as arbitrariness, race, ineffectiveness of counsel…

A new report issued by Amnesty International found that at least 10% of the first 1,000 people executed in the United States since 1977 were severely mentall ill. The report noted that the National Association of Mental Health estimates that between five and 10% of the 3,400 people on death row around the country are mentally ill. Amnesty said that states are failing to address serious mental health issues before crimes occur. In a review of available psychiatric examinations, medical records…

A new report by the American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project found that Georgia’s death penalty fails to meet 43 ABA standards for improving the fairness and accuracy of the death penalty. The assessment team assembled in Georgia by the ABA was so troubled by its findings that it called for a moratorium on not only executions but also the prosecution of death penalty cases, and urged the state to study problems such as inadequate funding for defense counsel, lack…