INDEX

Prior research on the role of race in wrongful capital convictions has focused primarily on the race of the defendant. In contrast, this article begins with two case studies that illustrate the impact of the race of the defendant and also the race of the victim in contributing to erroneous convictions. The second section of this article identifies the race of the defendant and the victim in 82 cases where prisoners were released from death row because of doubts about their guilt and in a matched group of inmates who were executed. Through the use of three logistic regression models, the combination of the race of the defendant and the race of the victim is identified as a significant predictor of case outcome (exoneration vs. execution). The results also indicate that an indirect relationship may exist between the combination of the race of the defendant and the victim, the strength of the evidence, and case outcome.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Innocence, Discrimination,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

Capital punishment has once again become the focus of intense national debate in the United States. There is increasingly widespread public concern over the propriety of state-sanctioned executions and the legal processes by which they are accomplished. Even in political arenas, where little more than a decade ago commentators could quip that “the electric chair has replaced the American flag as your all-purpose campaign symbol,” many elected officials are voicing second thoughts about capital punishment. The American Bar Association (ABA), among other prestigious groups, has called for a moratorium on executions until, at least, the procedural flaws in the legal process through which death sentencing takes place — what the ABA analysts characterized as a “haphazard maze of unfair practices” — have been identified and remedied. Recent assessments of the scope and seriousness of the problems that plague this process suggest that the task of reforming the system of capital punishment will prove to be a daunting one. For example, James Liebman and his colleagues have presented a sobering picture of what they termed a “broken system” in which the outcomes of capital trials — if judged by their fates in the appellate courts — are legally wrong more often than they are right. And at least one judge declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional because it failed to provide sufficient procedural protections to capital defendants.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Public opinion, Public debate,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

This article analyses racial discrimination in the administration of the death penalty – despite their importance to the critical debate over the fairness of capital punishment – are not able to address the effects of many of the most pernicious forms of racism in American society. In particular, they cannot examine “biographical racism” – the accumulation of race-based obstacles, indignities, and criminogenic influences that characterizes the life histories of so many African-American capital defendants. Second, I propose that recognizing the role of this especially pernicious form of racism in the lives of capital defendants has significant implications for the way we estimate fairness (as opposed to parity) in our analyses of death sentencing. Chronic exposure to race-based, life-altering experiences in the form of biographical racism represents a profoundly important kind of “structural mitigation.” Because of the way our capital sentencing laws are fashioned, and the requirement that jurors must engage in a “moral inquiry into the culpability” of anyone whom they might sentence to die, this kind of mitigation provides a built-in argument against imposing the death penalty on African-American capital defendants. It is structured into their social histories by the nature of the society into which they have been born.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Discrimination,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

Empirical studies of the death penalty continue to find that the race and gender of homicide victims are associated with the severity of legal responses in homicide cases even after controlling for legally relevant factors. A limitation of this research, however, is that victim race and gender are examined as distinct and independent factors in statistical models. In this study, we explore whether the independent examination of victim race and gender masks important differences in legal responses to homicides. In particular, we empirically test the hypothesis that defendants convicted of killing white females are significantly more likely to receive death sentences than killers of victims with other race-gender characteristics. Findings indicate that homicides with white female victims were more likely to result in death sentences than other victim race-gender dyads. We posit that this response may be unique and result in differential sentencing outcomes.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Discrimination,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

In 2003, the Missouri Supreme Court set aside the death sentence of Christopher Simmons, who was 17 when he was arrested for the murder of Shirley Crook. The Simmons court held that the “evolving standards of decency” embodied in the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments barred execution of persons who committed capital crimes before their 18th birthday. This decision was based in part on the emerging legislative consensus in the states opposing execution of juvenile offenders and the infrequency with which the death penalty is imposed on juvenile offenders. The State sought a writ of certiorari, and the case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. This article presents results of analyses of empirical data on the use of the death penalty for adolescent homicide offenders in state courts in the U.S. since 1990. The data shows that, since 1994, when death sentences for juvenile offenders peaked, juvenile death sentences have declined significantly. In particular, the decline in juvenile death sentences since 1999 is statistically significant after controlling for the murder rate, the juvenile homicide arrest rate, and the rate of adult death sentences. This downward trend in juvenile death sentences signals that there is an evolving standard in state trial courts opposing the imposition of death sentences on minors who commit capital offenses.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Juveniles,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

In recent years, numerous individuals who confessed to and were convicted of serious felony crimes have been released from prison— some after many years of incarceration—and declared factually innocent, often as a result of DNA tests that were not possible at the time of arrest, prosecution, and conviction. DNA testing has also exonerated numerous individuals who confessed to serious crimes before their cases went to trial. Numerous others have been released from prison and declared factually innocent in cases that did not involve DNA tests, but instead may have occurred because authorities discovered that the crime never occurred or that it was physically impossible for the (wrongly) convicted defendant to have committed the crime, or because the true perpetrator of the crime was identified, apprehended, and convicted. In this Article, we analyze 125 recent cases of proven interrogation-induced false confessions (i.e., cases in which indisputably innocent individuals confessed to crimes they did not commit) and how these cases were treated by officials in the criminal justice system.This Article has three goals. First, we provide and analyze basic demographic, legal, and case-specific descriptive data from these 125 cases. This is significant because this is the largest cohort of interrogation-induced false confession cases ever identified and studied in the research literature. Second, we analyze the role that (false) confession evidence played in these cases and how the defendants in these cases were treated by the criminal justice system. In particular, this Article focuses on how criminal justice officials and triers-of-fact respond to confession evidence, whether it biases their evaluations and overwhelms other evidence (particularly evidence of innocence), and how likely false confessions are to lead to the wrongful arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration of the innocent. Analysis of the aforementioned questions leads to the conclusion that the problem of interrogationinduced false confession in the American criminal justice system is far more significant than previously supposed. Furthermore, the problem of interrogation-induced false confessions has profound implications for the study of miscarriages of justice as well as the proper administration of justice. Third, and finally, this Article suggests that several promising policy reforms, particularly mandatory electronic recording of police interrogations, will minimize the number of false confessions and thereby inject a much needed dose of justice into the American criminal justice system.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Due Process , Networks,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Rees v. Peyton, Rees was a death penalty case in which the petitioner sought to withdraw his petition for writ of certiorari so that he could be executed. The Court stayed the proceedings after Rees was found incompetent to waive his appeal, but the Court did not dismiss the case until after Rees died of natural causes. Rees pended in the Court during the terms of three Chief Justices. Even though the Court underwent major changes in personnel and philosophy during those years, the Court’s treatment of Rees was essentially the same–to hold the case in abeyance. This article chronicles the extraordinary history of Rees in the U.S. Supreme Court for those thirty years.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Networks,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

I begin this essay with basic information about grand juries, then tell what happened to our grand jury, and conclude by reflecting on what I learned from this experience. My theme is the tension between the grand jury’s independence and the prosecutor’s desire to control it. The lesson I learned, intellectually and emotionally, is the depth and tenacity of the prosecutor’s assumption that he does control, and has the right to control, the grand jury process. I also learned some lessons about being a client, and believing in oneself and one’s principles.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Networks,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

Judges, jurors, police officers, and others are sometimes asked to make a variety of decisions based on judgments of dangerousness. Reliance on judgments of dangerousness in a variety of legal contexts has led to considerable debate and has been the focus of numerous publications. However, a substantial portion of the debate has centered on the accuracy and improvement of risk assessments rather than the issues concerning the use of dangerousness as a legal criterion. This article focuses on whether dangerousness judgments can play a useful role in capital sentencing decisions within the framework of “guided discretion” and “individualized assessment” set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States. It examines the relationship between these legal doctrines and contemporary approaches to risk assessment, and it discusses the potential tension between these approaches to risk assessment and these legal doctrines. The analysis suggests that expert testimony has the potential to undermine rather than assist the sentencer’s efforts to make capital sentencing decisions in a manner consistent with Supreme Court doctrine. This analysis includes a discussion of the advances and limitations of current approaches to risk assessment in the context of capital sentencing.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Networks,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127
  

American officials have indicated that extra efforts will be used to ensure that captured terrorist suspects face the death penalty. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has stated that the U.S. military will “try to prevent enemy leaders from falling into the hands of peacekeeping troops from allied nations that might oppose capital punishment.” Americans should be troubled to learn that the United States is out of step with an emerging worldwide consensus that the death penalty, even for the most heinous terrorist, “has no legitimate place in the penal systems of modern civilised societies.” As of July 2004, 117 nations were abolitionist in law or in practice, while only 80 retained the death penalty. The entire Council of Europe–45 nations ranging from Iceland to Russia–now constitutes a death penalty free zone.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 114
  
  Warning: Undefined variable $liste_themes in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 121
  
• Themes list Networks,
  Warning: Undefined variable $lien_langue in /home/worldcoa/coalition2020/wp-content/themes/WCADP/template-parts/contents-document.php on line 127