Entries tagged with “Karen Steele

Policy Issues

Youth

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Mental Illness

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Race

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Mar 23, 2023

New Podcast: Protecting Especially Vulnerable Defendants from the Death Penalty — A Discussion with Karen Steele

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC,” Robert Dunham, for­mer Executive Director of DPIC, inter­views Karen Steele (pic­tured), a researcher and defense attor­ney in Oregon, regard­ing the spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics of late ado­les­cent defen­dants fac­ing the death penal­ty. Research by Steele and oth­ers points to the incom­plete brain devel­op­ment in those aged 18 – 21 and how that can be exac­er­bat­ed in those suf­fer­ing from fetal alco­hol spec­trum dis­or­der. The research has also found that…

Policy Issues

Youth

,

Race

,

Sentencing Data

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Feb 10, 2023

STUDIES: Raising the Age of Those Eligible for the Death Penalty Would Likely Reduce Racial Disparities

Professor Craig Haney (pic­tured) of the University of California, Santa Cruz, Professor Frank Baumgartner of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Karen Steele, a crim­i­nal defense attor­ney in Oregon, exam­ined age and race data from near­ly 9,000 death sen­tences imposed in the U.S. from 1972 to 2021. They found that the racial dis­par­i­ties that plague the death penal­ty were more pro­nounced in cas­es involv­ing juve­nile and late ado­les­cent defen­dants. Building on the find­ings of a…