A new study from North Carolina shows that the state’s death penal­ty is error-prone and rarely imple­ment­ed. A study of the death penal­ty from 1977 to 2009 found that two out of three death sen­tences were over­turned on appeal, an error rate of 67%. The study also found that only 20% of death sen­tences result­ed in an exe­cu­tion. The review of the state’s death penal­ty was made by Matthew Robinson, a pro­fes­sor of Government & Justice Studies at Appalachian State University. He made a series of con­clu­sions based on his research:

- Capital pun­ish­ment is extreme­ly rare. Only about 2.5 per­cent of mur­ders lead to death sen­tences, and less than one-third of 1 per­cent of mur­ders result in cas­es that end with an exe­cu­tion. According to Robinson, the state aver­aged more than 600 mur­ders per year between 1977 and 2006, ver­sus only 14.5 death sen­tences and 1.4 exe­cu­tions per year.
 — Capital pun­ish­ment in the state is char­ac­ter­ized by dis­par­i­ties based on race and gen­der. Between 1976 and 2008, 42% of all mur­der vic­tims were African-American males, but defen­dants who were exe­cut­ed for killing African-American males account­ed for only 4% of the exe­cu­tions in the state. Caucasian females made up only 13% of all mur­der vic­tims dur­ing the same years, yet 43% of exe­cut­ed defen­dants were sen­tenced to death for killing a female Caucasian victim.

- Executions are not a greater deter­rent to mur­der than alter­na­tive sanc­tions such as life impris­on­ment. The state has not had an exe­cu­tion since August 2006, yet mur­der rates have declined in that peri­od.
 — Capital pun­ish­ment is more expen­sive than oth­er major pun­ish­ments, includ­ing life impris­on­ment. Studies in the state show that cap­i­tal cas­es cost three to five times more than non-cap­i­tal cas­es, and the state spends $20 mil­lion each year at the tri­al lev­el alone just to main­tain the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem.
 — Innocent peo­ple are wrong­ly con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der and sen­tenced to death in North Carolina. Seven inmates have been exon­er­at­ed from death row in the state since 1973.

(M. Robinson, ​“Face up to the facts and end the death penal­ty,” News & Observer, March 16, 2011). Read full report. See Costs, Deterrence and Innocence.

Citation Guide