A Reuters analy­sis of more than 2,000 state Supreme Court rul­ings in cap­i­tal cas­es has found that elect­ed judges are much less like­ly to over­turn death sen­tences than judges who are appoint­ed. In the 15 states in which the state Supreme Court is direct­ly elect­ed, jus­tices over­turned death sen­tences only 11% of the time as com­pared to a 26% rever­sal rate in the 7 states in which jus­tices are appoint­ed. 15 states have a hybrid sys­tem, where jus­tices are ini­tial­ly appoint­ed, but must then face elec­tion to remain on the bench; those states fell in the mid­dle, with a 15% rever­sal rate. Tennessee Justice Gary Wade, who ran tele­vi­sion ads dur­ing his re-elec­tion cam­paign tout­ing the court’s 90% rate of affirm­ing death sen­tences, told Reuters, ​“Those who were employed to run the cam­paign believed that it was impor­tant for this court to have a demon­strat­ed record, or will­ing­ness, to impose the death penal­ty.” An Ohio defen­dant, Ashford Thompson, is argu­ing that pol­i­tics played a role in the Ohio Supreme Court’s 4 – 3 deci­sion to uphold his death sen­tence in a deci­sion ren­dered less than a week before two of the major­i­ty jus­tices faced re-elec­tion. The jus­tice who wrote that opin­ion was the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of a $600,000 adver­tis­ing cam­paign that fea­tured tele­vi­sion ads prais­ing her pre­vi­ous votes to uphold death sen­tences. Dissenting Justice William O’Neill wrote, ​“The majority’s fail­ure to seri­ous­ly engage in the weigh­ing process pro­vides yet anoth­er rea­son why, in my opin­ion, Ohio’s sys­tem of impos­ing and review­ing death sen­tences is unconstitutional.”

(D. Levine and K. Cooke, ​“In states with elect­ed high court judges, a hard­er line on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” Reuters, September 22, 2015. Graphic by Reuters.) See Studies.

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