Entries tagged with “Outlier Counties”
Issues
Sep 13, 2022
Alabama Court Upholds Fifth Non-Unanimous Death Sentence Imposed on Intellectually Impaired Man Over the Course of Six Penalty Trials for the Same Crime
An Alabama appeals court has upheld a fifth non-unanimous death sentence imposed on a death-row prisoner who has faced six capital sentencing trials for the same offense and was once found to be ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. On September 2, 2022, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals (ACCA) affirmed the death sentence imposed on Jerry Jerome Smith by a Houston County trial judge in 2018 following a 10 – 2 jury sentencing recommendation for death. It was the…
Issues
Aug 26, 2022
DPIC Analysis: At Least a Dozen Exonerations in 2021 Involved the Wrongful Threat or Pursuit of the Death Penalty
A Death Penalty Information Center review of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has found that the pursuit or threatened use of the death penalty by police or prosecutors in nine different states led to the wrongful murder convictions of at least twelve innocent people who were exonerated in 2021. DPIC’s analysis of the National Registry’s 2021 Annual Report on Exonerations found that prosecutors in California, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, and New York wrongfully sought the…
Issues
Aug 09, 2022
Shelby County Voters Oust Prosecutor Who Sought to Execute Pervis Payne
Tennessee voters have issued a stunning rebuke to controversial Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich (pictured), ousting her from office after an eleven-year tenure marred by charges of racism and misconduct. In an August 4, 2022 election viewed as a major victory for criminal justice reform advocates, voters ended Weirich’s bid for a new eight-year term as county prosecutor, replacing her with University of Memphis law professor and former county commissioner, Steve Mulroy.
Issues
Executions Overview
,Jul 06, 2022
Oklahoma Court Schedules 25 Executions Between August 2022 and December 2024
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has set execution dates for 25 of the state’s 43 death-row prisoners, scheduling nearly an execution a month from August 2022 through December 2024. If carried out, the execution schedule, unprecedented in the state’s history, would put to death 58% of the state’s death row, including multiple prisoners with severe mental illness, brain damage, and claims of innocence. The court issued its execution schedule in two orders on July 1, 2022, in response to…
Issues
New Voices
,May 18, 2022
Alabama Appeals Court Rules Trial Court Did Not Abuse Discretion in Denying New Trial for Death-Row Prisoner Toforest Johnson
Ignoring entreaties from judges, prosecutors, and state bar presidents, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has denied a new trial to death-row prisoner Toforest Johnson. On May 6, 2022, the state appeals court ruled that Johnson (pictured, center, in a family photo) was not entitled to relief on his claim that prosecutors in his 1998 trial in Birmingham withheld evidence of a payment to a key witness in exchange for her testimony. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Feb 18, 2022
Oklahoma County Becomes Nation’s Third Most Prolific County Executioner as State Puts Intellectually Impaired Teen Offender to Death
When Oklahoma executed Gilbert Postelle on February 17, 2022, it came with a dubious distinction. The intellectually impaired man who was 18 years old at the time of his offense became the 44th person prosecuted in Oklahoma County to be put to death since executions resumed in the U.S. in 1977. His death made the county the nation’s third-most prolific county executioner over the past half-century, tied with Tarrant and Bexar counties in Texas. (Click to enlarge graphic.) Postelle was the…
Issues
Feb 03, 2022
New Poll: Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose Las Vegas DA Seeking the Death Penalty Against Vulnerable and Impaired Persons
Likely voters in Clark County, Nevada overwhelmingly oppose the use of capital punishment against broad categories of vulnerable and impaired persons whom county prosecutors have been trying to execute, a new poll released by Vegas Watch on January 27, 2022 shows. The poll, conducted by the Justice Research Group from December 1 to 13, 2021, found a significant disconnect between voters’ views on capital punishment and the practices of Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson (pictured).
Issues
Jan 27, 2022
Oklahoma Executes Donald Grant: First U.S. Execution of 2022 is 43rd from County with Most Executions Outside Texas
Oklahoma carried out the first execution of 2022 in the U.S. on January 27, injecting Donald Grant (pictured, at his clemency hearing) with a three-drug chemical cocktail whose constitutionality is the subject of a pending federal trial. Grant, whose execution drew international attention because of his serious mental illness, was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m. local time. Grant is the 43rd person capitally prosecuted in Oklahoma County to be put to death since executions resumed in the U.S. in…
Issues
Sep 17, 2021
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Ohio Death-Row Prisoner Challenges Sentence Based on Hamilton County Race Discrimination Study
An African-American man sentenced to death in Hamilton County, Ohio in 1999 for the murder of a white man is seeking to overturn his conviction and death sentence based on evidence from a recently published study that he was more than five times more likely to be sentenced to death because of his race and the race of the victim in his case. On September 3, 2021, citing statistical evidence from a study that found that the races of the defendant and the victim have significantly influenced the…
Issues
Apr 14, 2021
Nevada State Assembly Passes Bill to Repeal Death Penalty and Resentence Death-Row Prisoners to Life
The Nevada State Assembly has passed a bill that would abolish the state’s death penalty and resentence the prisoners currently on its death row to life without parole. It was the first time any death-penalty abolition bill had been reported out of committee and considered by either house of the Nevada legislature. AB 395 passed the Assembly on April 13, 2021 by a vote of 26 – 16, with all Democrats supporting the measure and all Republicans opposing it. The bill advances to the state senate…
Issues
Feb 11, 2021
Former Florida Public Defender Who Dismantled Duval County Capital Defense Capabilities Pleads Guilty to Ethics Violations
Former Florida public defender Matt Shirk (pictured), who was defeated for re-election after scandals related to personal misconduct and undermining criminal defense services in one the nation’s most prolific death sentencing counties, faces suspension of his law license after pleading guilty to multiple ethics violations during his time in office. If the plea is approved by the Florida Supreme Court, Shirk will be suspended from practice for six months, and must pay for disciplinary costs and…
Issues
Jan 22, 2021
Defense Lawyers Say DNA Tests Point to ‘Unknown Male’ as Likely Killer in Tennessee Death-Row Prisoner Pervis Payne’s Case
Lawyers for Tennessee death-row prisoner Pervis Payne say DNA testing in his 30-year-old case points to an “unknown male” and excludes Payne as the person who stabbed to death Charisse Christopher and her 2‑year-old daughter, Lacie, and seriously wounded her 3‑year-old son, Nicholas. In a statement issued on January 19, 2021, Payne’s lawyers from the Innocence Project and the Middle District of Tennessee federal defender’s office said that “[m]ale DNA from an unknown third party was found on…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Sep 14, 2020
Black Legislators, Legal Associations, Faith Leaders, and Community Groups Call for DNA Testing/Intellectual Disability Hearing that Could Take Pervis Payne Off Tennessee’s Death Row
Leaders in the Tennessee African-American community are urging Governor Bill Lee and the state and federal courts to halt the execution of a Black death-row prisoner who may be both innocent and intellectually disabled and who has been denied access to the courts to review those claims. A growing coalition of state legislators, legal associations, faith leaders, and community groups in Memphis have called for the courts to permit DNA testing that could potentially exonerate Pervis Payne…
Issues
Sep 10, 2020
Eight Years After Exoneration, Court Declares Joe D’Ambrosio ‘Wrongfully Imprisoned’
Eight years after his exoneration from death row, an Ohio trial court judge has declared that Joe D’Ambrosio (pictured) was “wrongfully imprisoned.” The August 31, 2020 ruling by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Russo moves D’Ambrosio one step closer to receiving compensation for the more than two decades he spent on death row as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. D’Ambrosio first filed suit seeking a declaration of wrongful imprisonment in 2012, after the federal courts had…
Research
Executions Overview
,Federal Death Penalty
,Sep 03, 2020
DPIC Analysis: Federal Execution Spree Out of Step with U.S. Death Penalty Trends and Attitudes
At a time in which the United States as a whole and individual states and counties have continued their long-term movement away from the death penalty, the federal government’s current execution spree has established it as an outlier jurisdiction out of step with the practices of the nation as a whole. The federal government has executed five prisoners in less than two months (click to enlarge map), with two more executions slated for September 22 and 24. No state has carried out any…
Issues
Aug 10, 2020
Orleans Parish D.A. Will Not Run for Re-Election, Tenure Tainted By Office Misconduct in Death-Penalty Cases
After 12 years as Orleans Parish, Louisiana District Attorney, Leon Cannizzaro (pictured) has announced that he will not seek re-election and will be retiring as D.A. at the end of this term. Cannizzaro’s tenure in office was marked by his aggressive defense of prior official misconduct in capital cases, misconduct by his office while he was District Attorney, and revelations that Orleans Parish prosecutors had routinely issued fake subpoenas and threatened imprisonment to coerce victims and…
Research
May 26, 2020
Poll Finds Record-Low Support for Death Penalty Among Houstonians
Just 20% of Houstonians — a record low — now support the death penalty over life-sentencing alternatives, a new Rice University survey has found. The 2020 Houston Area Survey by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, released on May 4, 2020, found that death-penalty support has declined by more than half since the turn of the 21st century in the city of 2.3 million residents. The survey results are noteworthy because Houston comprises 50% of the population of Harris County, Texas, a county…
Issues
Apr 06, 2020
Outlier Counties: Melvin Bonnell Seeks New Trial After Defense Discovers Evidence That Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Had Withheld for Decades
Ohio death-row prisoner Melvin Bonnell (pictured) has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to vacate his conviction and death sentence after his lawyers discovered physical evidence from his case that Cuyahoga County prosecutors had repeatedly insisted since the mid-1990s had been lost or destroyed. Bonnell was scheduled to be executed February 12, 2020, but received a reprieve in December 2019 because of what Governor Mike DeWine described as “ongoing problems” in obtaining execution drugs. Saying…
Issues
Jul 26, 2019
ACLU Article Explores the Use of the Death Penalty Against Those Who Have Not Killed
The U.S. Supreme Court has said the death penalty must be reserved for the worst of the worst murders and be imposed only on the worst of the worst offenders. But what of an accomplice to a felony in which someone was killed but the accomplice neither committed the killing nor intended that a killing would take place? Those co-defendants are not even the worst of the worst participants in the offense for which they are charged. Yet, as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported on July…
Issues
Jun 19, 2019
ACLU Study: Los Angeles Death Penalty Discriminates Against Defendants of Color and the Poor
A new study of the use of capital punishment in Los Angeles has concluded that, throughout the administration of District Attorney Jackie Lacey (pictured) the death penalty has “discriminate[d] on the basis of race and against the poor.” The study, released June 18, 2019 by the ACLU, reported that under Lacey’s administration the Los Angeles death penalty has been imposed exclusively against defendants of color, disproportionately for killings of white victims, and disproportionately in cases…
Issues
Nov 16, 2018
DPIC Analysis: The Decline of the Death Penalty in Philadelphia
During his election campaign, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner described the economic wastefulness of city prosecutors’ pursuit of the death penalty as “lighting money on fire.” A DPIC analysis of the outcomes of the more than 200 death sentences imposed in the city since 1978 (click here to enlarge image) and the last seven years of capital prosecution outcomes provides strong support for Krasner’s claim. Data tracking the final dispositions of cases in which Pennsylvania…
Research
Apr 02, 2018
Study Analyzes Causes of “Astonishing Plunge” in Death Sentences in the United States
Multiple factors — from declining murder rates to the abandonment of capital punishment by many rural counties and substantially reduced usage in outlier counties that had aggressively imposed it in the past — have collectively led to an “astonishing plunge” in death sentences over the last twenty years, according to a new study, Lethal Rejection, published in the 2017/2018 Albany Law Review. Using data on death-eligible cases from 1994, 2004, and 2014, Drake University law professor David McCord…
Issues
Mar 02, 2018
New Polls in Two Florida Counties that Heavily Use the Death Penalty Find Voters Prefer Life Sentences Instead
Recently released poll results from two Florida counties that have heavily used the death penalty suggest that voters actually prefer life-sentencing options instead. Polls conducted by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling on January 22 – 23, 2018, indicate that three-quarters of Miami-Dade County respondents preferred some form of life imprisonment rather than the death penalty as the punishment for people convicted of murder, and two-thirds of Pinellas County respondents preferred one of…
Issues
Murder Rates
,Feb 28, 2018
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Death Sentences, Executions More Likely in Hamilton County Than Elsewhere in Ohio
With 24 prisoners currently condemned to die, Hamilton County — home to Cincinnati — has the largest death row of any county in Ohio, despite a smaller population and a lower murder rate than other parts of the state. Ten of the 55 prisoners executed in the state since the 1970s were sentenced to death in Hamilton County, again more than any other Ohio county. In a recent pair of articles in The Cincinnati Enquirer, reporter Dan Horn describes the county’s long history with the death penalty and…
Issues
Dec 22, 2017
Clark County, Nevada Losing Capital Convictions Because of Prosecutors’ Race Discrimination in Jury Selection
The racially discriminatory jury selection practices of the Clark County, Nevada, District Attorney’s office are now causing it to lose convictions in capital cases. In a December 18 article, the prosecutorial watchdog, The Open File, details repeated violations by Clark County death-penalty prosecutors of the constitutional proscription against striking prospective jurors from service on the basis of race. Four times in the past four years, the Nevada Supreme Court has ordered new trials in…
Research
Executions Overview
,Dec 05, 2017
No Executions in the “Capital of Capital Punishment” for First Time in 30 Years
Harris County (Houston), Texas, has executed 126 prisoners since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’s capital punishment statute in 1976, more than any other county in the United States and, apart from the rest of Texas, more than any state. But in 2017, no one will be sentenced to death in Harris County and, for the first time since 1985, no one sentenced to death in the county will be executed. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court also overturned two controversial Harris County death-penalty…
Issues
Aug 21, 2017
California Court Bars Death Penalty in Mass Killing Because of “Unprecedented” Government Misconduct
Citing “relentless non-compliance” with court orders and “chronic obstructionism” by a prosecution team it says “has effectively compromised” Scott Dekraai’s rights to due process and a fair penalty trial, a California trial court has barred prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty in the worst mass killing in Orange County history. In a scathing opinion on August 18, Judge Thomas M. Goethals (pictured) — who had disqualified the entire Orange County District Attorney’s office from the case…
Issues
Jul 17, 2017
Report Finds High Levels of Misconduct in Four Top Death Sentencing Counties
Four counties that rank among the most aggressive users of capital punishment in the United States have prolonged patterns of prosecutorial misconduct, according to a new report by the Harvard-based Fair Punishment Project. The report, “The Recidivists: Four Prosecutors Who Repeatedly Violate the Constitution,” examined state appellate court decisions in California, Louisiana, Missouri, and Tennessee from 2010 – 2015, and found that prosecutors in Orange County, CA; Orleans Parish, LA; St. Louis…
Issues
Mar 29, 2017
Maricopa County, Arizona DA Seeks Death Penalty So Often, The County Has Run Out of Capital Defense Lawyers
Maricopa County, Arizona County Attorney Bill Montgomery has sought the death penalty so frequently that the county has run up millions of dollars in defense costs and run out of defense lawyers qualified to handle new capitally-charged cases. The Arizona Republic reports that, with 65 active death-penalty cases and more new capital cases charged than the 35 that have been resolved since July 1, 2014, the county ran out of the specialized lawyers needed to defend the cases in January of this…
Issues
Jan 12, 2017
REPORT: 5 Florida Counties Disproportionately Impose Death Penalty Against Seriously Mentally Impaired Defendants
Nearly two-thirds of death row prisoners in five Florida counties whose cases were studied by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project suffer from serious mental impairments. According to a report released by the project on January 12, 2017, the Florida Supreme Court’s December 2016 ruling in Mosley v. State requires reconsideration of the sentences imposed on approximately 150 people on Florida’s death row who were sentenced to death after the U.S. Supreme Court decided RIng v. Arizona in…
Issues
Dec 28, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Orange County, California Plagued by Misconduct Scandals
Orange County, California imposed nine death sentences between 2010 and 2015, more than 99.8% of American counties, and ranking it among the 6 most prolific death-sentencing counties in the country during that period. Over the last four years, patterns of misconduct have been revealed in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, sheriff’s office, and crime lab. In 2015, Judge Thomas Goethals disqualified District Attorney Tony Rackauckas (pictured) and the entire prosecutor’s office from…
Issues
Dec 12, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Miami-Dade Death Sentences Reflect Constitutional Defects, Misconduct
Miami-Dade County has historically been a significant contributor to Florida’s death row and large proportions of its recent death sentences raise serious constitutional questions about the practices that result in death verdicts and the characteristics of the defendants who are sentenced to death. Miami-Dade imposed five death sentences between 2010 and 2015, placing it among the 16 counties that produced more death sentences than 99.5% of all U.S. counties. The questionable reliability of…
Issues
New Voices
,Dec 02, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Dallas County, Texas Imposing Fewer Death Sentences After Years of Discrimination
With 55 executions since the 1970s, Dallas County, Texas, ranks second among all U.S. counties — behind only Harris County (Houston), Texas — in the number of prisoners it has put to death. It is also among the 2% of counties that account for more than half of all prisoners on death row across the country, and produced seven new death sentences and one resentence between 2010 and 2015, more than 99.5% of all U.S. counties during that period. Dallas County has a long history of prosecutorial…
Issues
Nov 21, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Los Angeles County Has Nation’s Largest — And Still Expanding — Death Row
Los Angeles County, California is the home of the nation’s largest death row, one that statistics show continues to rapidly grow. In January 2013, Los Angeles was responsible for more death row prisoners than any other county in the United States, and it has ranked as one of the two most prolific counties in imposing new death sentences each year since. The 31 death sentences imposed in the county between 2010 and 2015 are more than any other U.S. county imposed during that period and the four…
Issues
New Voices
,Nov 15, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Alabama’s Leading Death Sentencing County Elects Prosecutors Who Oppose Capital Punishment
Jefferson County, Alabama is among both the 2% of counties that account for more than half of all executions in the U.S. and are responsible for more than half of all prisoners on death row across the country. It led the state in new death sentences from 2010 – 2015, putting more people on death row than 99.5% of U.S. counties. All five of the defendants sentenced to death in those cases were Black. But the county may soon see a decline in death sentences as voters appear to have ousted the…
Issues
Nov 11, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: A Pledge of Change After Years of Error and Racial Bias in Hillsborough County Death Sentences
Change may be in the offing in Hillsborough County, Florida after voters ousted incumbent State Attorney Mark Ober on November 8 and replaced him with a reform candidate, Andrew Warren (pictured). Hillsborough ranks among the 2% of U.S. counties that are responsible for a majority of the prisoners currently on death rows across the country. The five death sentences imposed in Hillsborough from 2010 to 2015 under Ober’s tenure placed the county among the 16 counties that had imposed the highest…
Issues
Nov 07, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Non-Unanimous Jury Verdicts Highlight Systemic Flaws in Pinellas County, Florida Death Penalty
Pinellas County, Florida ranks among the 2% of counties responsible for more than half of all prisoners on death rows across the United States and among the 2% of counties responsible for more than half of all executions conducted in this country since 1977. The five death sentences imposed in Pinellas between 2010 and 2015 also place it, along with three other Florida counties, among the 16 U.S. counties with the highest number of new death sentences in the country. One major reason for…
Issues
Oct 31, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: San Bernardino, California Shares Problematic Patterns of Neighboring Counties
San Bernardino County, California is one of five Southern California counties that have produced more death sentences since 2010 than 99.5% of all U.S. counties. Along with its neighbors, Kern County, Riverside County, Orange County, and Los Angeles County, San Bernardino forms a “new Death Belt,” a region with high numbers of death sentences marked by overzealous prosecutors and poor representation for defendants facing a death sentence. In January 2013, San Bernardino had 37 prisoners on…
Issues
Oct 20, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Former Death Penalty Capital Shows Signs of Change
Harris County, Texas, the county that leads the nation in executions, has served as a bellwether in recent years of the nationwide decline of the death penalty. Although the 10 new death sentences imposed in Harris County since 2010 are more than were imposed in 99.5% of U.S. counties, they are significantly fewer than the 53 new death sentences that were handed down in Harris in 1998 – 2003 and the 16 from 2004 – 2009. The 2016 Kinder Institute survey of Houston residents showed that just 27%…
Issues
Oct 11, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Kern County, California Leads Nation in Police Killings, Ranks Among Highest in Death Sentences
Kern County, California — one of five Southern California counties that have been described as the “new Death Belt“ — sent six people to death row between 2006 and 2015, more than 99.4% of U.S. counties. Its death sentence-to-homicide rate during the 10-year-period from 2006 to 2015 also was 2.3 times higher than in the rest of the state. In this same time frame, Kern had the highest rate of civilians killed by police of any county in the country: between 2005 and 2015, police killed 79 people in…
Issues
Oct 03, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Riverside County, “The Buckle of a New Death Belt”
Riverside County, California imposed more death sentences than any other county in the United States in 2015, accounting for more than half of the state’s new death sentences and 16% of new death sentences imposed nationwide. Among other states, only the 9 death sentences imposed in Florida outstripped Riverside’s total of 8. The 29 death sentences imposed in Riverside from 2010 – 2015 made it the nation’s second most prolific death-sentencing county during that period, behind only the country’s…
Issues
Sep 23, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Legacy of Racism Persists in Caddo Parish, Which Had Nation’s Second-Highest Number of Lynchings
The death-sentencing rate per homicide in Caddo Parish, Louisiana was nearly 8 times greater between 2006 and 2015 than the rest of the state, making a parish with only 5% of Louisiana’s population responsible for 38% of the death sentences imposed statewide. Caddo currently has more people on death row than any other parish in the state. Known as “Bloody Caddo,” the parish had the second highest number of lynchings of any county in the nation. The Confederate flag flew in front of the steps…
Issues
Sep 16, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Judicial Override, Race Bias, Official Misconduct Rampant in Mobile, Alabama’s Use of Death Penalty
Judicial override of jury recommendations of life, the imposition of death sentences after non-unanimous jury sentencing recommendations, and prosecutorial misconduct, race bias, and ineffective defense counsel have made Mobile County, Alabama one of the most prolific death sentencing counties in the United States. Mobile judges imposed 8 death sentences between 2010 and 2015, 88% in cases with white victims. A recent report by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project attributes this high…
Issues
Sep 08, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Official Misconduct, Race Bias Permeate Death Penalty in Clark County, Nevada
The geographic arbitrariness, high rates of official misconduct, racial discrimination, and poor defense representation characteristic of outlier jurisdictions that disproportionately seek and impose the death penalty in the United States are all present in Clark County, Nevada’s administration of the death penalty. From 2010 through 2015, nine death sentences were imposed in Clark County, while no one was sentenced to death in any other county in Nevada during that same period. In an analysis…
Issues
Sep 02, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Maricopa, Arizona — “Outrageously Exploited Power,” “Crippled” Defense, and Five Exonerations
Maricopa County, Arizona imposed 28 death sentences between 2010 and 2015 and, as described in a BuzzFeed news analysis of a new report on outlier death penalty practices, “stands out for its stark examples of the problems found across the counties that most often sentence people to death.” The report, Too Broken to Fix, by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project, studied the nation’s 16 most prolific death-sentencing counties and found that Maricopa County exhibited systemic problems…
Issues
Sep 01, 2016
Florida Prosecutor, Public Defender Tied to Outlier Death Penalty Practices Suffer Landslide Election Loss
In a primary election described as reshaping the political landscape of Northeast Florida, the region voted in a landslide Tuesday to oust State Attorney Angela Corey (pictured) and Public Defender Matt Shirk. The pair’s controversial policies had made Duval County one of the most prolific death sentencing counties in the country and had led to national derision of its criminal justice system. Some legal experts touted Corey’s defeat by political newcomer Melissa Nelson as evidence of voter…
Issues
Aug 26, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Duval, Florida – Controversial Prosecutor, Inadequate Defense, Systemic Death Penalty Problems
Between 2010 and 2015, only 16 counties in the United States imposed five or more death sentences. Duval County, Florida, which consistently ranks among the most punitive death sentencing counties in the country, sentenced 25 capital defendants to death. According to a new report released by the Fair Punishment Project at Harvard University, Duval produced roughly one-quarter of the death sentences imposed in Florida during that period, although the entire Jacksonville Standard Metropolitan…
Issues
Aug 23, 2016
New Study Explores “Systemic Deficiencies” in High-Use Death Penalty Counties
As states and counties across the United States are using the death penalty with decreasing frequency, a new report issued by the Fair Punishment Project on August 23 explores the outlier practices of 16 U.S. counties that are bucking the national trend and disproportionally pursuing capital punishment. These jurisdictions, representing one-half of one percent of all U.S. counties or county equivalents, are the only locales in the United States to have imposed five or more death sentences since…
Issues
Aug 12, 2016
Death Row Exoneree Requests DOJ Investigation of Systemic Prosecutorial Misconduct in Louisiana
Louisiana death row exoneree John Thompson (pictured, center), who was wrongly convicted of two different New Orleans murders as a result of prosecutorial misconduct, has filed a petition with the United States Department of Justice seeking an investigation of more than 100 cases prosecuted by former Orleans Parish assistant district attorney James Williams. Thompson filed his petition on August 2 under provisions of the Law Enforcement Misconduct Statute, which makes it a violation of federal…
Issues
Dec 04, 2015
Counties With Highest Rates of Killings by Police Also Among Highest in Death Sentences
The counties in the United States that have the highest per capita rate of killings by police officers also rank among the highest in the country in the number of people sentenced to death. In his criminal justice blog, “The Watch,” for the Washington Post, Radley Balko details the “remarkable correlation” between killings by police and death sentences imposed. “There are more than 3,000 counties in the United States,” Balko writes. “But the 13 with the highest rates of police killings are not…
Issues
Nov 05, 2015
History of Misconduct Chronicled in Oklahoma County With 41 Executions
Oklahoma County has executed 41 prisoners since 1976, the third highest in the country, and is among the 2% of American counties responsible for 56% of the men and women currently on the nation’s death rows. A ThinkProgress report chronicles the decades-long pattern of misconduct committed under its long-time District Attorney “Cowboy Bob” Macy (pictured). Macy sent 54 people to death row during his 21 years as District Attorney, more than any other prosecutor in the U.S. in that period. “Macy…
Issues
Sep 10, 2015
Southern California Tops Deep South in New Death Sentences Amid Mounting Evidence of Misconduct
Riverside County, California is “the buckle of a new Death Belt,” says Professor Robert J. Smith of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, producing 7 death sentences in the first half of 2015. This, Smith says, is “more than California’s other 57 counties combined, more than any other state, and more than the whole Deep South combined.” Los Angeles County has produced 33 death sentences since 2010 — the most in the Nation — and 5 Southern California counties (also including Kern…
Issues
Aug 18, 2015
STUDIES: Racial Bias in Jury Selection
A new study of trials in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, revealed that potential jurors who were black were much more likely to be struck from juries than non-blacks. The results were consistent with findings from Alabama, North Carolina, and other parts of Louisiana, highlighting an issue that will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. In Caddo Parish, an area known for its many death sentences, prosecutors used peremptory strikes against 46% of black jurors, but only 15% of other jurors…