Death Penalty

The Death Penalty in 2007: Year End Report, Death Penalty Information Center. December, 2007. "Almost all (86%) of the executions in 2007 were in the South, and 62% of the executions took place in one state, Texas. Executions have declined 57% since 1999."
The Death Penalty in 2007: Year End Report, [PDF] Death Penalty Information Center. December, 2007. "Almost all (86%) of the executions in 2007 were in the South, and 62% of the executions took place in one state, Texas. Executions have declined 57% since 1999."
Who Survives on Death Row? An Individual and Contextual Analysis, American Civil Liberties Union. August, 2007. "The findings show that despite efforts to transcend an unfortunate racial past, residues of this fierce discrimination evidently still linger, at least when the most morally critical decision about punishment is decided."
The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty American Civil Liberties Union. June, 2007. "This paper details the profoundly troubling evidence that racial disparities continue to plague the modern federal death penalty."
The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty American Civil Liberties Union. June, 2007. "[M]odern Attorneys General seek the death penalty at far higher rates if the victim is White, and White federal defendants are far more likely to have their death charges reduced to life sentences through plea bargaining."
Prisoner-assisted homicide: more 'volunteer' executions loom, Amnesty International. May, 2007. "Race and mental health appear to be the strongest predictors of who will waive their appeals - most "volunteers" are white males ... and many have a history of mental disorders.""
New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commision Report [PDF] New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commision. January, 2007. "There is no compelling evidence that the New Jersey death penalty rationally serves a legitimate penological intent."
Death Penalty on the Decline Amnesty International. 2007. "The Annual Death Penalty Statistics... show a worldwide trend towards abolition with an encouraging 25 per cent decrease in executions and death sentences in 2006."(Overview of wold trends, includes links to facts and statistics.)
Capital Punishment, 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2006. "Of those under sentence of death, 56% were white, 42% were black, and 2% were of other races. Fifty-two women were under sentence of death in 2005, up from 47 in 1995."
The Death Penalty in 2006: Year End Report, [PDF] Death Penalty Information Center. December, 2006. "Executions dropped to their lowest level in 10 years as many states grappled with problems related to wrongful convictions and the lethal injection process."
Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report American Bar Association. September, 2006. "[R]esearch establishes that many Florida capital jurors do not understand their role and responsibilities when deciding whether to impose a death sentence."
So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States, Human Rights Watch. April, 2006. "[P]prisoners in the United States are executed by means that the American Veterinary Medical Association regards as too cruel to use on dogs and cats."
Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited, The Constitution Project. February, 2006. "[P]rovides a list of specific and innovative tactics for improving the fairness and reliability of capital punishment systems in the United States."
Capital Punishment, 2004 Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2005.
Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Alabama, [PDF] ACLU. October, 2005. "At least 30 current death row prisoners have no lawyer. Alabama's death row occupants are overwhelmingly poor -- 95 percent are indigent -- and minority."
Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth, [PDF] Death Penalty Information Center. October, 2005. "How Death Penalty Jurors are Unfairly Selected, Manipulated, and Kept in the Dark"
Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2005, [PDF] NAACP LDF. May, 2005.
Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2005, [PDF] NAACP LDF. March, 2005.
Death Row U.S.A. Fall 2004, [PDF] NAACP LDF. December, 2004.
The death penalty in 2004: Year end report, [PDF] Death Penalty Information Center. December, 2004.
Capital Punishment, 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2004.
Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center. September, 2004.
Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2004, [PDF] NAACP LDF. July, 2004.
Death Row U.S.A. Spring 2004, [PDF] NAACP LDF. April, 2004.
Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2004, [PDF] NAACP LDF. January, 2004.
The Death Penalty in the Year 2003: Year End Report, [PDF] Death Penalty Information Center. December, 2003.
Capital Punishment 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, 2003.
Death Row U.S.A. Fall 2003, [PDF] NAACP LDF. October, 2003.
Capital Punishment in New York State Statistics from Eight Years of Representation, New York Capital Defender Office. August, 2003.
Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2003, [PDF] NAACP LDF. July, 2003.
Death by discrimination: The continuing role of race in capital cases, Amnesty International. April, 2003.
Death Row U.S.A. Spring 2003, [PDF] NAACP LDF. April, 2003.
Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2003, [PDF] NAACP LDF. January, 2003.
Study of the Imposition of the Death Penalty in Connecticut State of Connecticut Commission on the Death Penalty. January, 2003.
An Empirical Analysis of Maryland's Death Sentencing System With Respect to the Influence of Race and Legal Jurisdiction, [PDF] Professor Raymond Paternoster, Univ. of Maryland. January, 2003.
A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty, Texas Defender Service. December, 2002.
Capital Case Commission Report (Arizona) Arizona Attorney General. December, 2002.
Capital Punishment 2001 Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2002.
The Death Penalty in 2002: Year End Report, Death Penalty Information Center. November, 2002.
Death Row U.S.A. Fall 2002, [PDF] NAACP LDF. October, 2002.
Common Sense Says ... That people on Death Row often had the state's worst lawyers at trial., Common Sense Foundation. October, 2002. "More than one in six current death row inmates was represented at trial by lawyers who have been disciplined by the North Carolina State Bar"
The Disposition of Nebraska Capital and Non-Capital Homicide Cases Nebraska Crime Commission. October, 2002. (death sentences 5 times more likely if victim well to do)
Indecent and internationally illegal The death penalty and child offenders, [PDF] Amnesty International. September, 2002.
Dignity Denied: The Experience of Murder Victims' Family Members Who Oppose the Death Penalty, [PDF] Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation. August, 2002.
Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2002, [PDF] NAACP LDF. July, 2002.
Report of the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment [Website] Illinois Governor George H. Ryan's Commission on Capital Punishment. April, 2002.
Death sentence reversals cast doubt on system Courtroom mistakes put executions on hold, Howard Mintz, San Jose Mercury News. April, 2002. (focuses on California and the high rate at which federal judges overturn California judges who vote for death)
Death Row U.S.A. Spring 2002, [PDF] NAACP LDF. April, 2002.
A Broken System, Part II: Why There Is So Much Error in Capital Cases, and What Can Be Done About It, James Liebman. February, 2002.
Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty [PDF] Amnesty International. February, 2002. (lots of international comparisons, regularly updated)
Innocence and the Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center. January, 2002.
Arbitrary, discriminatory, and cruel: an aide-mémoire to 25 years of judicial killing, Amnesty International. January, 2002. (summarizes the cases of the executed, sorted by theme)
Drug Companies and Their Role in Aiding Executions National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. 2002.
Lethal Indifference: The Fatal Combination of Incompetent Attorneys and Unaccountable Courts, [PDF] Texas Defender Service. 2002.
The Death Penalty and Human Rights U.S. Death Penalty and International Law, [PDF] Death Penalty Information Center. 2002.
Capital Punishment 2000 Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2001. "Thirty-seven States and Federal government held almost 3,600 inmates on death row"(This report presents the characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2000, and of persons executed in 2000.)
Review of Virginia's System of Capital Punishment [PDF] Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission. December, 2001.
The Death Penalty in 2001: Year End Report, [PDF] Death Penalty Information Center. December, 2001.
No return to execution: The US death penalty as a barrier to extradition, Amnesty International. November, 2001. "overview of the emerging global consensus against capital punishment"(One more reason for the USA to abolish the death penalty is that its increasingly isolated resort to this punishment is undermining international cooperation on law enforcement)
Death Row U.S.A. Fall 2001, [PDF] NAACP LDF. October, 2001.
Toward Greater Awareness: The American Bar Association Call for a Moratorium on Executions Gains Ground, American Bar Association. August, 2001.
Protecting the Consular Rights of Foreign Nationals Facing the Death Penalty, [PDF] Amnesty International. August, 2001.
Report to the Supreme Court Systemic Proportionality Review Project 2000-2001 Term, [PDF] New Jersey Supreme Court. June, 2001. "there is unsettling statistical evidence indicating that cases involving killers of White victims are more likely to progress to a penalty trial than cases involving killers of African-American victims."
Death without Justice: A Guide for Examining the Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States, [PDF] ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities. June, 2001.
Illusion of Control: "Consensual" executions, the impending death of Timothy McVeigh, and the brutalizing futility of capital punishment, [PDF] Amnesty International. June, 2001.
How Mistaken and Perjured Eyewitness Identification Testimony Put 46 Innocent Americans on Death Row, Northwestern University School of Law. May, 2001.
Race and the Death Penalty in North Carolina An Empirical Analysis: 1993-1997, The Common Sense Foundation. April, 2001.
Beyond Reason: The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation, Human Rights Watch. March, 2001.
Dying Twice: Conditions on New York's Death Row, [PDF] Association of the Bar of the City of New York. 2001.
The Death Penalty in 2000: Year End Report, Death Penalty Information Center & Justice Project. December, 2000.
Capital Punishment, 1999 Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 2000.
A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty, The Texas Defender Service. October, 2000.
Survey of the Federal Death Penalty System Department of Justice. September, 2000.
Sentenced to Death: A Report on Washington Supreme Court Rulings In Capital Cases, [PDF] ACLU of Washington. August, 2000.
Worlds Apart Violations of the Rights of Foreign Nationals on Death Row - Cases of Europeans, Amnesty International. July, 2000.
A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, [PDF] James S. Liebman, Jeffrey Fagan & Valerie West. June, 2000.
Capital Punishment 1998 Bureau of Justice Statistics. December, 1999. "Eighteen States executed 68 prisoners during 1998 -- eighty-nine executed so far this year"
International Perspectives on the Death Penalty: A Costly Isolation for the U.S., Death Penalty Information Center. October, 1999.
On the wrong side of history: Children and the death penalty in the USA, Amnesty International. October, 1998.
The Death Penalty in Black & White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides, Death Penalty Information Center. June, 1998.
Innocence and the Death Penalty: The Increasing Danger of Executing the Innocent, Death Penalty Information Center. July, 1997.
Killing for Votes: The Dangers of Politicizing the Death Penalty Process, Death Penalty Information Center. October, 1996.
Twenty Years of Capital Punishment: A Re-evaluation, Death Penalty Information Center. June, 1996.
Capital Punishment on the 25th Anniversary of Furman v. Georgia [PDF] Southern Center for Human Rights. June, 1996.
With Justice for Few: The Growing Crisis in Death Penalty Representation|, Death Penalty Information Center. October, 1995.
A World Leader in Executing Juveniles Human Rights Watch. March, 1995.
On the Front Line: Law Enforcement Views on the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Information Center. 1995.
Discrimination, Death and Denial: The Tolerance of Racial Discrimination in Infliction of the Death Penalty, [PDF] Stephen B. Bright. 1995.
The future of the death penalty in the U.S.: A Texas-sized crisis, Death Penalty Information Center. May, 1994.
Racial Disparities: in Federal Death Penalty Prosecutions 1988-1994|, Death Penalty Information Center. 1994.
Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions, Death Penalty Information Center. October, 1993.
Sentencing for Life: Americans Embrace Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Information Center. 1993.
Millions Misspent: What Politicians Don't Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Information Center. October, 1992.
Justice on the Cheap: The Philadelphia Story, Death Penalty Information Center. May, 1992. (comparing expenditures for death penalty defense with other PA counties)
Killing Justice: Government Misconduct and the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Information Center. March, 1992.
Buckle of the Death Belt: The Death Penalty in Microcosm (Chattahoochee Judicial District), Death Penalty Information Center. 1991. (racial discrimination in one region of Georgia)
Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities, [PDF] Government Accountability Office. February, 1990. "Our synthesis of the 28 studies shows a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty...."