“A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH:” NEWS SERIES REVEALS ARBITRARY DEATH
PENALTY IN GEORGIA

    According to “A Matter of Life or Death,” a recent four-part news series published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia’s death penalty is “as predictable as a lightening strike.” Based on an investigation of 2,328 murder convictions in Georgia between January 1, 1995 and December 31, 2004 the paper determined that the state’s capital punishment system is unfairly shaped by racial and geographic bias, and fails to reserve the death penalty for “the worst of the worst.”

    The AJC reporters worked with University of Maryland criminologist Ray Paternoster to examine the cases. Though their investigation determined that 1,315 of these cases involved crimes that made defendants eligible for the death penalty, prosecutors sought it  in only 25% of those cases. Of those that faced a capital trial, only 1 in 23 was sentenced to death. “It’s like a roulette wheel. Arbitrariness is a weakness of the death penalty,” observed former Georgia Chief Justice Norman Fletcher.

Among the key findings of the investigation were the following:

• Race Matters: Statewide, prosecutors were twice as likely to seek the death penalty in cases where the victim was white. The study also revealed that between 1995 and 2004, prosecutors were about six times more likely to seek death when an armed robber killed a white person.

• Geography Matters: Decisions on whether to seek the death penalty are often determined by where the crime was committed. For example, a murder in Clayton County was found to be 13 times more likely to bring a death penalty prosecution than a similar crime a few miles away in Fulton County.

• Nature of the Crime Matters: Throughout Georgia, geographic and racial disparities were more pronounced in prosecutors’ handling of murders that involved armed robbery. Of the 132 murderers researchers identified as making up the worst 10% of death penalty cases - because their cases involving heinous crimes such as torture, multiple victims or rape - only 29 received the death penalty. Fifty of these defendants avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty in exchange for receiving a life sentence.

• Georgia’s Supreme Court has repeatedly cited cases that had been overturned on appeal to justify other death sentences. According to the study’s examination of 159 death penalty rulings by the state Supreme Court since 1982, 80% of cases of cases cited at least one overturned case. In more than a third of the decisions, at least 25% of the cited sentences had been overturned. Another 16 rulings contained citations that were reversed afterward. Only 14 rulings cited no reversed cases.

• Juries are rejecting death sentences in favor of life without parole. Since 2000, juries have decided against death in two of every three sentencing trials. The trend makes each remaining death sentence more out of step with punishment for similar crimes. The report notes that one reason prosecutors in Georgia are choosing not to seek a death is that juries will not impose it unless guilt is irrefutable.

• The high cost of the death penalty contributes to its arbitrariness. Many prosecutors note that seeking a death sentence in a case where there is no certainly of a conviction is a waste of valuable resources on long-drawn-out court proceedings and years of appeals. In addition to concerns about the cost of capital punishment, prosecutors noted that they will often decide to not seek a death sentence because a victims’ family opposes the punishment, a defendant’s mental state is in question, or the individual agrees to cooperate with prosecutors to convict a co-defendant. Muscogee District Attorney John Gray Conger observed that these reasons and the high costs of the death penalty can play a role in the decision to offer defendants a sentence of life without parole. He said, “That’s the unfortunate truth. It costs a lot of money to try a death case. It takes a lot of resources. It takes a lot of people.”

(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 22 – 25, 2007). Read the Series.
See Arbitrariness, Costs, and Race.

Recent U.S. Supreme Court Rulings Address Texas Death Penalty Problems

In recent years, a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings have identified and addressed serious problems within the Texas death penalty system. The following are among the key decisions issued by the Court:

2007

Panetti v. Quarterman -- (No. 06-6407)

The Supreme Court (5-4) blocked the execution of Scott Panetti, ruling that the federal court's standard for mental incompetence was too restrictive and that the Texas courts had not given him an adequate hearing. Panetti suffers from schizophrenia and insisted that he was to be executed for preaching the gospel. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy wrote, "Gross delusions stemming from a severe mental disorder may put an awareness of a link between a crime and its punishment in a context so far removed from reality that the punishment can serve no proper purpose. It is therefore error to derive. . . a strict test for competency that treats delusional beliefs as irrelevant once the prisoner is aware the State has identified the link between his crime and the punishment to be inflicted."

Smith v. Texas -- (No. 05-11304)
Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman -- (No. 05-11284)
Brewer v. Quarterman -- (No. 05-11287)

In these cases, the Court overturned the death sentences of three Texas inmates in separate 5-4 rulings. In all three cases, the juries had been prevented by the Texas statute (since changed) from fully considering the mitigating evidence presented by the defendants, evidence such as their low IQ or other mental deficiencies. In Smith v. Texas, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had held that any error on the mitigation issue was harmless and therefore did not require a reversal. The Supreme Court rejected that analysis. In Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman and Brewer v. Quarterman, the death sentences were affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and by lower federal courts on habeas corpus review. The Supreme Court reversed the 5th Circuit, holding that it had not properly applied the holdings of prior cases in which the High Court made it clear that "sentencing juries must be able to give meaningful consideration and effect to all mitigating evidence that might provide a basis for refusing to impose the death penalty on a particular individual, notwithstanding the severity of his crime or his potential to commit similar offenses in the future."

2005

Miller-El v. Dretke -- (No. 03-9659)

The Supreme Court (6-3) overturned the death sentence of a black man, Thomas Miller-El, after determining that the jury selection procedure for his trial was racially biased. Black potential jurors were questioned more aggressively about the death penalty than their white counterparts, and the jury pool was "shuffled" at least twice in order to increase the chances of more whites being selected. At trial, Miller-El was convicted by a jury consisting of one black and 11 whites after prosecutors had stricken nine of the 10 blacks eligible to serve. "The prosecutors' chosen race-neutral reasons for the strikes do not hold up and are so far at odds with the evidence that pretext is the fair conclusion, indicating the very discrimination the explanations were meant to deny," Justice David Souter wrote for the majority.

2004

Banks v. Dretke -- (No. 02-8286)

In a 7-2 decision, the Court overturned the death sentence of Delma Banks Jr., concluding that he was denied a fair trial because prosecutors in Texas failed to disclose key information. In 2003, Banks was just minutes from his scheduled execution. Writing for the majority, Justice Ginsburg stated: "When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material in the State's possession, it is ordinarily incumbent on the State to set the record straight."

For more information about these cases see U.S. Supreme Court.

See a Video Tour of North Carolina's Execution Process with Warden Marvin Polk

Video by Scott Langley, Langley Creations Documentaries

Media Coverage of DPIC's Latest Report, A Crisis of Confidence

On June 9, 2007 the Death Penalty Information Center released its new report, “A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts About the Death Penalty.” The report, based on results from DPIC’s national public opinion poll, received extensive national media coverage in major papers and electronic media. Among the news organizations that featured this story were the following:

New York Times

"Even before Monday's decision, a significant minority of Americans were ineligible to serve as jurors in death penalty cases. According to a poll to be released today by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group in Washington that is critical of the death penalty as currently applied, 39 percent of Americans say they have a moral objection to the death penalty that would disqualify them from serving in a capital case. The poll's margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points."

- New York Times, “Court Ruling Expected to Spur Convictions in
Capital Cases,” by Adam Liptak, Page 1A, June 9, 2007.

Newsweek

"Even though most Americans support the death penalty, there’s rising concern about how the state’s ultimate punishment is levied. A new poll by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that provides analysis on capital punishment, found that 58 percent want a national moratorium on executions. In 2006, there were fewer executions than in any year since the death penalty was reinstated over 30 years ago. NEWSWEEK’s Kurt Soller spoke with the director of the center, Richard Dieter, about the current state of capital punishment in America."

- Newsweek, “Poll: Americans Want Death Penalty Moratorium”
by Kurt Soller, Web Exclusive, June 15, 2007.

U.S. News & World Report,

"For a long time, the contentious issue of deterrence--whether the threat of capital punishment prevented homicides--was at the center of the debate, serving as a core justification for proponents. Meanwhile, the opposition cited a mounting body of evidence that debunked the claim. New data this week is not likely to do much to clear things up. A poll from the Death Penalty Information Center, a clearinghouse for data on executions and public opinion on capital punishment, found that only 38 percent of respondents believed that the death penalty deters would-be murderers. The poll, conducted in March, surveyed 1,000 adults and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points."

- U.S. News & World Report, “Mixed Views on the Death Penalty,”
by Chris Wilson, June 12, 2007.

Reuters News Service

"The poll also showed about 87 percent believe an innocent person has been executed in the last 15 years, and 58 percent think there should be a moratorium on executions while wrongful convictions and wrongful death sentences are investigated. 'This is ... a confirmation of how powerful these cases of innocence have been about using the death penalty presently and in the future. It shows a distancing by the American public from the death penalty,' said Dieter."

- Reuters News Service, by Deborah Charles, June 9, 2007.
Also distributed to thousands of Reuters affiliates throughout the nation and around the world.
“Majority of Americans Favor Death Penalty,”

The Boston Globe

"Prosecutors can now seek from jurors ever higher levels of commitment to executing convicts. Juries, over time, are likely to become less and less representative of the communities from which they are drawn. According to a poll conducted for the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center before the Supreme Court ruling, most African-Americans, and nearly half of women and Catholics, think their beliefs would exclude them from capital juries."

- The Boston Globe, “Stacking Juries Toward Death,” Editorial, June 10, 2007.

For more information see: MEDIA COVERAGE REPORT