Entries tagged with “Maricopa County, AZ

Jun 17, 2025

Article of Interest: Maricopa County Investigation: Capital Cases are Costly, Lack Transparency in Charging Decisions, and Rarely End in Death Sentences

A joint inves­ti­ga­tion by *ProPublica* and *ABC15 Arizona* reviewed more than 300 cas­es over the past two decades where Maricopa County pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty and found that only 13% result­ed in death sen­tences. In most cas­es a jury nev­er got close to con­sid­er­ing whether to sen­tence some­one to death: in more than three-quar­ters of cas­es, defen­dants pled guilty in exchange for less­er pun­ish­ment, or pros­e­cu­tors reversed course before tri­al. In only 41 of…

Issues

May 12, 2023

INNOCENCE: Another Death-Row Exoneration Added to DPIC’s Innocence List

Occasionally, DPIC dis­cov­ers an old­er case involv­ing an exon­er­a­tion from death row and adds that case to the DPIC Innocence List. Joe Cota Morales was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Arizona in 1976 and was exon­er­at­ed in 1981. He has now been added to the Innocence List, bring­ing the total num­ber of death-row…

Research

Nov 04, 2020

Local Prosecutor Elections Foreshadow Continued Movement Away From Death Penalty

Reform pros­e­cu­tors made fur­ther inroads in the American legal sys­tem in the November 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, unseat­ing pros­e­cu­tors in sev­er­al of the most pro­lif­ic death-sen­­tenc­ing coun­ties in the United States and cap­tur­ing open seats in major Texas and Florida coun­ties, but falling short in sev­er­al other high…