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…