Scott Phillips, a pro­fes­sor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver, recent­ly pub­lished a study that revealed dis­par­i­ties in who receives the death penal­ty inTexas. Phillips stud­ied the 504 death penal­ty cas­es that occurred between 1992 and 1999 in Harris County (Houston and sur­round­ing areas). Harris County is the largest juris­dic­tion in the United States to use a court-appoint­ment sys­tem for select­ing lawyers to defend indi­gent defen­dants. Phillips’s research showed stark dif­fer­ences between the defen­dants who were rep­re­sent­ed by hired coun­sel and those who were not, regard­less of their socio-eco­nom­ic sta­tus. His study revealed that ​“those who can hire coun­sel for the entire case, or even a por­tion of the case, appear to be treat­ed in a fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent man­ner than those who can­not.” For the 504 death penal­ty cas­es exam­ined, hir­ing coun­sel for the entire case elim­i­nat­ed the chance of a death sen­tence and result­ed in more acquit­tals, and hir­ing coun­sel for at least a por­tion of the case sub­stan­tial­ly reduced the chance of a death sentence. 

Based on his research, Phillips rec­om­mend­ed that Harris County move from a court-appoint­ed sys­tem to a pub­lic defend­er sys­tem. Public defend­ers, he argued, have supe­ri­or per­for­mance in death penal­ty cas­es, point­ing to the exam­ples of the cap­i­tal defend­er pro­grams in Colorado, New York, and Philadelphia. ​“A pub­lic defend­er office would be staffed by salaried gov­ern­ment attor­neys who are autonomous,“ he said.

“This is not an indict­ment of appoint­ed attor­neys,” accord­ing to Phillips. ​“The sys­tem is flawed, and because 252 of 254 coun­ties in Texas use the appoint­ment sys­tem, the research is rel­e­vant statewide.” This research could be rel­e­vant to more than just the state of Texas. Accounting for 106 exe­cu­tions since the mod­ern era, Phillips dubbed Harris County the ​“cap­i­tal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.“ ​“Findings of the cur­rent research have impor­tant impli­ca­tions for the nation­al death penal­ty debate … Understanding cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Texas is a pre­req­ui­site for under­stand­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America.”

(S. Phillips, ​“Legal Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment,” 99 Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 717 (2009)). See Arbitrariness and Representation.

Citation Guide