Studies

State Studies

The fol­low­ing list is a sam­ple of recent state stud­ies focus­ing on issues of the death penalty.

Alabama

• The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override (2011) — Study by the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama expos­ing the prac­tice of state judges impos­ing death sen­tences by over­rid­ing a jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion for life.
• Alabama Death Penalty Assessment (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project found that Alabama’s death penal­ty failed to meet fun­da­men­tal ABA stan­dards of fair­ness and accuracy.
• Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Alabama (2005) — Study by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), show­ing how struc­tur­al and pro­ce­dur­al flaws in Alabama’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem stack the deck against fair tri­als and appro­pri­ate sen­tenc­ing for those fac­ing the death penalty. 

Arkansas

• Racial Sentencing Patterns in Arkansas (2008) — A study by University of Iowa law pro­fes­sor David Baldus of the death penal­ty in Arkansas show­ing racial pat­terns in sentencing.

Arizona

• Arizona Death Penalty Assessment (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project deter­min­ing that Arizona’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws are plagued with serious problems.

California

• California Cost Study 2011 — DPIC sum­ma­ry of ​“A roadmap to mend or end the California leg­is­la­ture’s mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar death penal­ty deba­cle” from Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review by Judge Arthur L. Alarcon & Paula M. Mitchell.
• California’s Death Penalty is Dead (2011) — Study by the ACLU of Northern California cat­a­logs numer­ous intractable prob­lems and wan­ing pub­lic sup­port which may lead to the end of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. 
• Death in Decline ​’09 (2009) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California reveal­ing that only three coun­ties (Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside) account­ed for 83% of the state’s death sen­tences in 2009. 
• The Hidden Death Tax (2009) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California on the costs of the death penal­ty found addi­tion­al expens­es due to a net increase in the size of death row.
• Death by Geography (2008) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California exam­in­ing the vari­a­tion among California coun­ties in seek­ing the death penalty.
• The Impact of Legally Inappropriate Factors on Death Sentencing for California Homicides, 1990 – 1999 (2005) — A study by G. Pierce & M. Radelet pub­lished in the Santa Clara Law Review find­ing that the race of the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing mur­der great­ly affect­ed whether a defen­dant would be sen­tenced to death. 

Colorado

• Colorado Capital Punishment: An Empirical Study (2013) — Conducted by law pro­fes­sors Justin Marceau and Sam Kamin of the University of Denver and Wanda Foglia of Rowan University found that the death penal­ty in Colorado is applied so rarely as to ren­der the sys­tem uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The authors con­clud­ed that Colorado’s death penal­ty law is applic­a­ble to almost all first-degree mur­ders, but is imposed so infre­quent­ly that it fails to pro­vide the kind of care­ful nar­row­ing of cas­es required by the Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia (1972). In this ground­break­ing study, the researchers reviewed all first-degree mur­der cas­es in the state between 1999 and 2010. They found that 92 per­cent of the 544 first-degree mur­der cas­es in that time span con­tained at least one aggra­vat­ing fac­tor that made the defen­dant eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. However, pros­e­cu­tors filed notices of intent to seek the death penal­ty in only 15 mur­der cas­es and pur­sued the death penal­ty at tri­al in only five of those cas­es — a 1% rate among death-eli­gi­ble cas­es. The authors wrote, ​“Under the Colorado cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing sys­tem, many defen­dants are eli­gi­ble but almost none are actu­al­ly sen­tenced to death. Because Colorado’s aggra­vat­ing fac­tors so rarely result in actu­al death sen­tences, their use in any giv­en case is a vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment.”

Connecticut

• Arbitrariness in Death Cases (2011) — Study by Professor John Donohue of Yale University’s School of Law of death sen­tences in Connecticut find­ing that seek­ing the death penal­ty often cor­re­lat­ed with the race of the vic­tim and the defen­dant, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly with the sever­i­ty of the crimes.

Delaware

• The Delaware Death Penalty: An Empirical Study (2012) — A five-year study of the oper­a­tion of Delaware’s death penal­ty by Cornell law school.

Florida

• The Death Penalty in Florida (2009) — An eval­u­a­tion of Florida’s death penal­ty by Christopher Slobogin, Professor of Law and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University.
• Florida Death Penalty Assessment (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association of Florida’s death penalty system. 

Georgia

• A Matter of Life and Death (2007) — Study by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution of Georgia’s use of the death penal­ty find­ing that ​“get­ting the death penal­ty in Georgia is as pre­dictable as a lightning strike.”
• Georgia Eyewitness Identification Procedures (2007) — Study by the Georgia Innocence Project reveal­ing that 83% of Georgia police agen­cies have no writ­ten rules on han­dling eyewitness identifications.
• Georgia Death Penalty Assessment Report (2006) — Study 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.
• Thirty Years Analysis of Death Penalty Cases in Georgia (2005) — Study by the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council ana­lyz­ing death penal­ty cas­es in the state from 1973 — 2003. 

Illinois

• Illinois Capital Reform Study Committee Final Report (2010) — Sixth and final report of the com­mit­tee cre­at­ed by the state leg­is­la­ture in 2003 and head­ed by Thomas P. Sullivan, a for­mer U.S. Attorney.
• Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment (2005) — Study by the Commission, aim­ing to address prob­lems Illinois Governor George Ryan iden­ti­fied two years pri­or, includ­ing poten­tial safe­guards to pre­vent the pos­si­ble con­vic­tion and exe­cu­tion of innocent inmates.

Indiana

• Indiana Death Penalty Cost Study (2010) — A state analy­sis of the costs of the death penal­ty in Indiana find­ing the aver­age cost to a coun­ty for a tri­al and direct appeal in a cap­i­tal case to be over ten times more than a life-without-parole case.
• Indiana Death Penalty Assessment (2007) — Study by the American Bar Association call­ing for a halt to exe­cu­tions in the state because of con­cerns about the arbi­trari­ness of the state’s death penalty. 

Kansas

• Kansas Judicial Council Death Penalty Advisory Committee Report (2014) — Study by the com­mit­tee exam­in­ing the state’s appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and the hefty price tag of seek­ing the death penalty.
• Kansas Cost Study (2003) — Study by the Kansas gov­ern­ment detail­ing the dis­par­i­ty in cost between death penal­ty cas­es and non-death penal­ty cas­es in Kansas.

Kentucky

• Kentucky Assessment on the Death Penalty (2011) — ABA study ana­lyz­ing var­i­ous laws, rules, pro­ce­dures, stan­dards, and guide­lines relat­ing to the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Kentucky.

Louisiana

• Diminishing All of Us: The Death Penalty in Louisiana (2012) — A recent study pub­lished by the Jesuit Social Research Institute of Loyola University point­ed to numer­ous prob­lems with Louisiana’s death penalty.
• Death Sentencing in East Baton Rouge Parish, 1990 – 2008 (2011) — A study con­duct­ed by Professors Glenn Pierce and Michael Radelet pub­lished in the Lousiana Law Review show­ing that the odds of a death sen­tence in parts of Louisiana were 2.6 times high­er for those charged with killing a white vic­tim than for those charged with killing a black victim.

Maryland

• Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment Report (2008) — Study by the leg­isla­tive com­mis­sion estab­lished to exam­ine the death penal­ty in Maryland rec­om­mend­ing abo­li­tion of the punishment.
• Maryland Cost Study (2008) — Study by the Urban Institute detail­ing the dis­par­i­ty in cost between death penal­ty cas­es and non-death penal­ty cas­es in Maryland.

Missouri

• Missouri Death Penalty Assessment (2012) — Study by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project deter­min­ing that Missouri’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws are plagued with serious problems.
• Missouri Death Penalty and Geography (2008) — Study by Prof. David Sloss of the St. Louis University School of Law show­ing that the chance of a death sen­tence appears to rest on what part of the state the crime was committed in.
• Life and Death Decisions: Prosecutorial Discretion and Capital Punishment in Missouri (2008) — A study by Katherine Barnes of Arizona University Law School, and David Sloss and Stephen Thaman of St. Louis Univeristy Law School, study­ing 1046 cas­es of inten­tion­al homi­cide in Missouri to deter­mine geo­graph­i­cal and racial effects in the rates at which pros­e­cu­tors seek the death penalty.

Nevada

• Nevada Cost Study 2012 — A study by Dr. Terance Miethe of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada on the costs of the death penal­ty in Nevada.

New Hampshire

• Majority Report of the Commission to Study the Death Penalty in New Hampshire (2010) — A study by a New Hampshire com­mis­sion eval­u­at­ing the use of the death penal­ty with­in the state.

New Mexico

• The Application of the Death Penalty in New Mexico, July 1979 through December 2007: An Empirical Analysis (2008) — A study by attor­ney Marcia Wilson reveal­ing infor­ma­tion on how the death penal­ty was applied in New Mexico after its reinstatement.

North Carolina

• Race Discrimination in Jury Selection and Non-Enforcement of Batson in North Carolina (2016) — A study by appel­late lawyers Daniel R. Pollitt and Brittany P. Warren found that, despite per­va­sive evi­dence that North Carolina pros­e­cu­tors dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly employed peremp­to­ry strikes to exclude black jurors, the state’s courts have per­sis­tent­ly refused to enforce the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against race-based jury strikes. In 114 cas­es in which Batson issues were decid­ed on the mer­its, North Carolina appeals courts nev­er found any sub­stan­tive Batson vio­la­tion where a pros­e­cu­tor had artic­u­lat­ed a rea­son for the peremp­to­ry chal­lenge of a minor­i­ty juror. In the 74 cas­es in which it had decid­ed Batson claims on the mer­its, the Supreme Court of North Carolina had nev­er once found a sub­stan­tive Batson violation.
• The Death Penalty in North Carolina: A Summary of the Data and Scientific Studies (2011) — A com­pre­hen­sive review of stud­ies on the death penal­ty by Matthew Robinson, Professor of Government and Justice Studies at Appalachian State University.
• Excessive Sentencing in North Carolina (2010) — A study by Professor Frank Baumgartner showed that most of those orig­i­nal­ly con­demned to death in North Carolina even­tu­al­ly received less­er sen­tences when their cas­es were concluded.
• Racial Bias Study (2010) — A study by Professors Michael Radelet and Glenn Pierce found that the odds of a defen­dant receiv­ing a death sen­tence in North Carolina were three times high­er if the per­son was con­vict­ed of killing a white per­son than if he had killed a black person.
• Potential Savings from Abolition of the Death Penalty in North Carolina (2009) — A study pub­lished by a Duke University econ­o­mist reveal­ing that North Carolina could save $11 mil­lion annu­al­ly if it dropped the death penalty.
• The High Cost of the Death Penalty (2009) — A study by the Independent Weekly show­ing that North Carolina con­ser­v­a­tive­ly spent at least $36 mil­lion dol­lars by seek­ing the death penal­ty instead of life in prison with­out parole over a sev­en year span.
• Mental Illness and the Death Penalty in North Carolina: A Diagnostic Approach (2007) — Study by the Charlotte School of Law reveal­ing that obsta­cles entrenched with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem impede efforts to iden­ti­fy those with severe men­tal ill­ness and treat them fairly.
• Death Row Injustices (2006) — Study by the Common Sense Foundation of North Carolina find­ing that at least 37 peo­ple on death row had tri­al lawyers who would not have met min­i­mum stan­dards of qual­i­fi­ca­tion at the time of the study.
• Race and the Death Penalty in North Carolina An Empirical Analysis: 1993 – 1997 (2001) — A study by Professor Jack Boger and pre­sent­ed by The Common Sense Foundation North Carolina Council of Churches.

Ohio

• Report of Task Force Appointed by the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court (2014) The Task Force announced 56 rec­om­men­da­tions for chang­ing the death penal­ty, including:
  • Require high­er stan­dards for prov­ing guilt if a death sen­tence is sought (such as DNA evidence)
  • Bar the death penal­ty for those who suf­fer from ​“seri­ous mental illness”
  • Lessen the num­ber of crimes eli­gi­ble for the death penalty
  • Create a Death Penalty Charging Committee at the Attorney General’s Office to approve capital prosecutions
  • Adopt a Racial Justice Act to facil­i­tate inequal­i­ty claims in Ohio courts.

• Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report (2007) — Study by the American Bar Association stat­ing that 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.
• AP Ohio Study (2005) — Study by the Associated Press of 1,936 indict­ments report­ed to the Ohio Supreme Court by Ohio coun­ties with cap­i­tal cas­es from October 1981 through 2002 find­ing that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has been applied in an uneven and often arbitrary fashion.

Oregon

• Fair Punishment Project (2016) — Analysis of case records, media reports, and opin­ions of Oregon legal experts by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project ofind­ing that two-thirds of the 35 peo­ple on Oregon’s death row have seri­ous men­tal ill­ness or intel­lec­tu­al impair­ment, expe­ri­enced severe child­hood trau­ma, or were under age 21 at the time of the offense.
• Oregon’s Death Penalty: A Cost Analysis (2016) — Study by Lewis & Clark Law School Prof. Aliza B. Kaplan, Seattle University crim­i­nal jus­tice Prof. Peter Collins, and Lewis & Clark law can­di­date Venetia L. Mayhew exam­ined the costs of hun­dreds of aggra­vat­ed mur­der and mur­der cas­es in Oregon find­ing that the aver­age tri­al and incar­cer­a­tion costs of an Oregon mur­der case that results in a death penal­ty are almost dou­ble those of a mur­der case that results in a sen­tence of life impris­on­ment or a term of years, and that, exclud­ing state prison costs, cas­es that result in death sen­tences may be three to four times more expensive.

Pennsylvania

• In Life and Death, Costly Mistakes (2011) — Study by the Philadelphia Inquirer of death penal­ty appeals in Pennsylvania span­ning three decades, find­ing a pat­tern of inef­fec­tive assis­tance by defense attorneys.
• Report of the Advisory Committee on Wrongful Convictions (2011) — A study by the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee on Wrongful Convictions iden­ti­fy­ing the most com­mon caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and any cur­rent laws and pro­ce­dures impli­cat­ed in each type of causation.
• Facts about Pennsylvania’s Death Penalty (2009) — Study by the Associated Press show­ing the state goes through the expen­sive and time-con­sum­ing process of try­ing many death penal­ty cas­es and fight­ing appeals, but almost all cas­es end with a life sentence.
• Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assessment Report (2007) — Study by the American Bar Association (ABA) show­ing that flaws in Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty sys­tem are so per­va­sive that the state risks exe­cut­ing an innocent person.
• Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System (1999) — Study by the Committee, mak­ing a series of 23 rec­om­men­da­tions to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, to the Legislature, to the state’s Attorney General and District Attorneys, and to Governor Ed Rendell. 

South Carolina

• Removal of African Americans and Women in Jury Selection in South Carolina Capital Cases, 1977 – 2012 (2016) — Study by Professor Ann M. Eisenberg of the University of South Carolina of jury selec­tion in 35 South Carolina homi­cide cas­es between 1997 and 2012 that result­ed in death sen­tences, review­ing the strikes or accep­tance of more than 3,000 venire mem­bers for gen­der and more than 1,000 venire­men­bers for race. The study found that pros­e­cu­tors exer­cised their peremp­to­ry strikes at near­ly triple the rate against African-American prospec­tive jurors than against white prospec­tive jurors and that the death-qual­i­fi­ca­tion process fur­ther imped­ed a sub­stan­tial num­ber of African-American jurors from serv­ing, con­tribut­ing to an over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of whites on death penal­ty juries. The gen­der study showed that, while men and women were excused for cause at com­pa­ra­ble rates, both were struck more for views against the death the death penal­ty than for pro-death penal­ty views and women were 3.8 times more like­ly to be exclud­ed for oppos­ing the death penal­ty than for pro-death penal­ty views. Women were 1.4 times more like­ly to be struck for cause for oppos­ing the death penal­ty than men and men were 2.3 times more like­ly to be struck than women for being unable to con­sid­er a life sen­tence. Prosecutors were 1.4 times more like­ly to peremp­to­ri­ly strike a woman than a man, and defense lawyers were 1.4 times more like­ly to peremp­to­ri­ly strike a man than a woman.
• The Effect of Race, Gender, and Location on Prosecutorial Decision to Seek the Death Penalty in South Carolina (2006) — Study of homi­cide cas­es in South Carolina by Professor Isaac Unah of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and attor­ney Michael Songer find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors were more like­ly to seek the death penal­ty when the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing mur­der was white, if the vic­tim was female, and when the crime occurred in a rur­al area of the state.

Tennessee

• Tennessee’s Death Penalty Lottery (2018) — An exam­i­na­tion of every first-degree mur­der case in Tennessee from 1977 – 2017 found that the facts of the crime did not pre­dict whether a death sen­tence would be imposed. Rather, the best indi­ca­tors were arbi­trary fac­tors such as where the mur­der occurred, the race of the defen­dant, the qual­i­ty of the defense, and the views of the pros­e­cu­tors and judges assigned to the case.
• Tennessee Legislative Study Committee Recommendations (2009) — A 16-month analy­sis of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment process by the com­mit­tee with rec­om­men­da­tions for achiev­ing a more fair and accurate system
• Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment (2007) — Study by the ABA detail­ing racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in cap­i­tal cas­es, poor­ly trained defense attor­neys, heavy case­loads for those rep­re­sent­ing defedants, and inad­e­quate pro­ce­dures to address innocence claims. 

Texas

• Texas Death Penalty Assessment Report (2013) — Study by the ABA focus­ing on the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty sys­tem in Texas.
• Regulating Death in the Lone Star State (2011) — A study by the ACLU of Texas and Northwestern University’s Center for International Human Rights reveal­ing that pro­ce­dures for euth­a­niz­ing ani­mals in the state are more care­ful­ly reg­u­lat­ed than the pro­to­col for exe­cut­ing death row inmates.
• What’s Messing with Texas Death Sentences? (2011) — A study ana­lyz­ing the decline of death sen­tenc­ing in Texas by David McCord.
• Convicting the Innocent: Texas Justice Derailed (2009) — A study by The Justice Project ana­lyz­ing the cas­es of 39 inno­cent Texans who col­lec­tive­ly spent more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
• Too Much Cruelty, Too Little Clemency (2009) — A study by Amnesty International exam­in­ing many of the near­ly 200 exe­cu­tions that have occurred dur­ing Governor Rick Perry’s term in office.
• Legal Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2009) — A study that reveals dis­par­i­ties in who receives the death penal­ty in Texas by Scott Phillips, a pro­fes­sor at the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver.
• Status Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2009) — A study by Scott Phillips, a soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at the University of Denver, pub­lished in the Law & Society Review focus­ing on the impo­si­tion of death sen­tences in rela­tion to the vic­tim’s social status.
• Racial Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2008) — A study by Prof. Scott Phillips of the University of Denver explor­ing the rela­tion­ship of race to death sen­tenc­ing in Harris County (Houston), Texas.
• A New Look at Race When Death Is Sought (2008) — A study by Professor Scott Phillips of the University of Denver found that black defen­dants in Houston, Texas, are more like­ly to be sen­tenced to death than white defen­dants, even when oth­er vari­ables are accounted for.
• Eyewitness Identification Procedure in Texas (2008) — A study by the Justice Project con­cern­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­ce­dures in Texas.
• Mental Illness and Executions in Texas (2007) — Study con­duct­ed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has reveal­ing that Texas is almost last among states in spend­ing on men­tal health ser­vices and per­forms poor­ly in oth­er men­tal health areas, while exe­cut­ing many inmates with seri­ous mental illness.
• Minimizing Risk, A Blueprint for Death Penalty Reform in Texas (2005) — Study by the Texas Defender Service call­ing for sub­stan­tial changes in the way Texas han­dles cap­i­tal murder cases.
• A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty (2000) — A study by the Texas Defender Service.

Virginia

• Virginia Death Penalty Assessment Report (2013) — Study by the ABA focus­ing on the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of Virginia’s death penalty system.
• A Vision for Justice (2005) — Study by the Innocence Commission for Virginia of 11 wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es in Virginia find­ing that mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is the major rea­son inno­cent peo­ple have been con­vict­ed in the state.
• Virginia Crime Lab Audit (2005) — Study by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors find­ing that the Virginia lab’s inter­nal review process was flawed and that labs had botched DNA tests.

Washington

• Washington State Bar Report (2006) — Study by the Death Penalty Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Defense of the Washington State Bar on the state’s death penalty.