Reprieve granted by Gov. Surveyed law enforcement officials said they did not believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder, and they rated it as one of most inefficient uses of taxpayer dollars in fighting crime. Inadequate legal assistance, racial bias, and prosecutorial indifference to innocence make Mr. Hinton’s case a textbook example of injustice. People with mental illness are more vulnerable to police pressure, are less able to give meaningful assistance to their counsel, and are typically poor witnesses. African Americans make up 42% of people on death row and 34% of those executed. In 1972, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty because it looked too much like “self-help, vigilante justice, and lynch law.”13 Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 308 (Stewart, J., concurring). EJI won an important victory when the Supreme Court recognized that people with dementia, like our client Vernon Madison, are protected from execution. A person doesn’t have to be innocent to be wrongly sentenced to death. Mike DeWine on April 14, 2020 and execution rescheduled for March 16, 2022. The Most Common Causes of Wrongful Death Penalty Convictions: Official Misconduct and Perjury or False Accusation, Adequate Representation: The Difference Between Life and Death, Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases, Slamming the Courthouse Doors: Denial of Access to Justice and Remedy in America, Without Fear or Shame: Lynching, Capital Punishment and the Subculture of Violence in the American South, Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, Race and the Death Penalty by the Numbers, Executions by State and Region Since 1976, List of Defendants with Intellectual Disability Executed in the United States (1976–2002), The Juvenile Death Penalty Today: Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January 1, 1973-February 28, 2005, Position Statement 54: Death Penalty And People With Mental Illnesses, Continuing Issues: Determining Intellectual Disability After, Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty, Public Support for the Death Penalty Drops Below 50% for First Time in 45 Years, The 2020 Democratic Field, Minus Joe Biden, Embraces a Death Penalty Moratorium. Current Governor Kate Brown has requested a report on the status of the death penalty and indicated the report will inform future policy decisions. Inadequate defense lawyers contribute to wrongful convictions and death sentences, and by failing to object at trial, they make it harder to correct errors on appeal. was decided, 71 people were on death row for juvenile crimes. In 2019, California joined Oregon (2011) and Pennsylvania (2015) in imposing a moratorium on executions. The National Research Council of the National Academies concluded that studies claiming the death penalty has a deterrent effect are fundamentally flawed.35 National Research Council of the National Academies, Deterrence and the Death Penalty 2 (Daniel S. Nagin & John V. Pepper eds., 2012). That leaves people sentenced to death with little hope for relief in postconviction proceedings, where they have to present new evidence and navigate complicated procedural rules.10 ACLU, “Slamming the Courthouse Doors: Denial of Access to Justice and Remedy in America” (Dec. 2010). Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of September 14, 2020 NEWS ( 9 / 17 / 20 ) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court … Official misconduct is more common in death penalty cases, especially if the defendant is Black. 171 people have been exonerated and released from death row since 1973.1 Death Penalty Information Center, “Innocence Database.”, 1526 people have been executed in the U.S. since 1973.2 Death Penalty Information Center, “Execution Database.”. 75% of executions for murder were in cases with white victims. regional data demonstrates that the modern death penalty in America mirrors the racial violence of the past. Executing people with mental illness presents the same concerns about culpability and reliability that led the Court to bar the death penalty for children and people with intellectual disability. Public support for the death penalty has been waning steadily—a record low 49% of Americans said they supported the death penalty in 2016. And only 2% of the counties are responsible for the majority of today’s death row population and recent death sentences. The likelihood of a death sentence or execution depends more on the county where the crime happened than the severity of the offense. Illegal racial discrimination in jury selection is widespread, especially in the South and in capital cases—thousands of Black people called for jury service have been illegally excluded from juries. More than 8 in 10 lynchings between 1889 and 1918 and legal executions since 1976 have occurred in the South. Reprieve granted by Gov. The execution schedule for these 26 prisoners now extends through April 2022. At least 10% of the people currently sentenced to death nationwide are military veterans, many of whom suffer from documented trauma disorders. awyers have slept through parts of trial, shown up in court intoxicated, or done no work to prepare for sentencing. The first drug used varies by state and is listed above for each execution.ƒ female* volunteer - an inmate who waived ordinary appeals that remained at the time of his or her execution~ foreign national¥ white defendant executed for murder of black victim, Death Penalty Information Center | 1701 K Street NW Suite 205 Washington, DC 20006, Phone: 202-289-2275 | Email: [email protected], Privacy Policy | ©2020 Death Penalty Information Center. New death sentences have remained near record lows since 2015 after peaking at more than 300 per year in the mid-90s. Studies have shown that murder rates, including murders of police officers, are consistently higher in states that have the death penalty, while states that abolished the death penalty have the lowest rates of police officers killed in the line of duty. A nationwide survey of police chiefs put the death penalty last among their priorities for reducing violent crime—below increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy. Too often they fail to adequately investigate cases, call witnesses, and challenge forensic evidence.7 Stephen B. The Court has since barred the death penalty for certain groups of people who are not culpable enough to “deserve” execution. All execution dates have been rescheduled by the state. Data shows that 87% of Black exonerees who were sentenced to death were victims of official misconduct, compared to 67% of white death row exonerees. But because the Court “le[ft] to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction,” some states created narrow definitions that permit the execution of people who meet the clinical criteria for intellectual disability. Two-thirds were people of color, and more than two-thirds of the victims were white. Ten of the 22 states that have abolished the death penalty have done so since 2004:  New Jersey (2007), New York (2007), New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2012), Maryland (2013), Delaware (2016), Washington (2018), New Hampshire (2019), and Colorado (2020). In capital trials, the accused is often the only person of color in the courtroom. Mike DeWine on April 14, 2020 and execution rescheduled for July 20, 2022. There’s a greater risk that people with mental illness will be executed without review of their convictions or sentences even though the law forbids executing people who are mentally incompetent. Mike DeWine on June 5, 2020 and execution rescheduled for February 15, 2023. Whether a defendant will be sentenced to death typically depends on the quality of his legal team more than any other factor. Mental health experts estimate at least 20% of people on death row today have a serious mental illness. Few states provide enough funding for capital defense counsel, and most death penalty states don’t require lawyers to meet the minimum training and experience guidelines set by the American Bar Association, contribute to wrongful convictions and death sentences, and by failing to object at trial, they make it harder to correct errors on appeal. When Roper was decided, 71 people were on death row for juvenile crimes. (Bernard Troncale). EJI has been documenting facts about Alabama’s death penalty for more than 30 years. This is the lowest number of executions that Amnesty International has recorded in at least a decade. Use of the death penalty and public support for it are declining.