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"Capital Punishment - statistics "
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Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death
The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. As a result, very few false convictions are ever discovered, and those that are discovered are not representative of the group as a whole. In the United States, however, a high proportion of false convictions that do come to light and produce exonerations are concentrated among the tiny minority of cases in which defendants are sentenced to death. This makes it possible to use data on death row exonerations to estimate the overall rate of false conviction among death sentences. The high rate of exoneration among death-sentenced defendants appears to be driven by the threat of execution, but most death-sentenced defendants are removed from death row and resentenced to life imprisonment, after which the likelihood of exoneration drops sharply. We use survival analysis to model this effect, and estimate that if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely, at least 4.1% would be exonerated. We conclude that this is a conservative estimate of the proportion of false conviction among death sentences in the United States.
Journal Article
Looking Deathworthy: Perceived Stereotypicality of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes
Researchers previously have investigated the role of race in capital sentencing, and in particular, whether the race of the defendant or victim influences the likelihood of a death sentence. In the present study, we examined whether the likelihood of being sentenced to death is influenced by the degree to which a Black defendant is perceived to have a stereotypically Black appearance. Controlling for a wide array of factors, we found that in cases involving a White victim, the more stereotypically Black a defendant is perceived to be, the more likely that person is to be sentenced to death.
Journal Article
Aggression, Escalation, and Other Latent Themes in Legal Intervention Deaths of Non-Hispanic Black and White Men: Results From the 2003‒2017 National Violent Death Reporting System
Objectives. To investigate racial/ethnic differences in legal intervention‒related deaths using state-of-the-art topic modeling of law enforcement and coroner text summaries drawn from the 2003–2017 US National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). Methods. Employing advanced topic modeling, we identified 8 topics consistent with dangerousness in death incidents in the NVDRS death narratives written by public health workers (PHWs). Using logistic regression, we then evaluated racial/ethnic differences in PHW-coded variables and narrative topics among 4981 males killed by legal intervention, while adjusting for age, county-level characteristics, and year. Results. Black, as compared with White, decedents were younger and their deaths were less likely to include PHW-coded mental health or substance use histories, weapon use, or positive toxicology for alcohol or psychoactive drugs, but more likely to include “gangs-as-an-incident-precipitant” coding. Topic modeling revealed less frequent thematic representation of “physical aggression” or “escalation” but more of “gangs or criminal networks” among Black versus White decedents. Conclusions. While Black males were more likely to be victims of legal intervention deaths, PHW-coded variables in the NVDRS and death narratives suggest lower threat profiles among Black versus similar White decedents. The source of this greater risk remains undetermined.
Journal Article
Structural Racism and Odds for Infant Mortality Among Infants Born in the United States 2010
Objectives
While ecological studies indicate that high levels of structural racism within US states are associated with elevated infant mortality rates, studies using individual-level data are needed.
To determine whether indicators of structural racism are associated with the individual odds for infant mortality among white and black infants in the US.
Methods
We used data on 2,163,096 white and 590,081 black infants from the 2010 US Cohort Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Files. Structural racism indicators were ratios of relative proportions of blacks to whites for these domains: electoral (registered to vote and voted; state legislature representation), employment (civilian labor force; employed; in management; with a bachelor’s degree), and justice system (sentenced to death; incarcerated). Multilevel logistic regression was used to determine whether structural racism indicators were risk factors of infant mortality.
Results
Compared to the lowest tertile ratio of relative proportions of blacks to whites with a bachelor’s degree or higher—indicative of low structural racism—black infants, but not whites, in states with moderate (OR = 1.12, 95% CI = 0.94, 1.32) and high tertiles (OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.03, 1.51) had higher odds of infant mortality.
Conclusions
Educational and judicial indicators of structural racism were associated with infant mortality among blacks. Decreasing structural racism could prevent black infant deaths.
Journal Article
Learning to kill: Why a small handful of counties generates the bulk of US death sentences
We demonstrate strong self-referential effects in county-level data concerning use of the death penalty. We first show event-dependency using a repeated-event model. Higher numbers of previous events reduce the expected time delay before the next event. Second, we use a cross-sectional time-series approach to model the number of death sentences imposed in a given county in a given year. This model shows that the cumulative number of death sentences previously imposed in the same county is a strong predictor of the number imposed in a given year. Results raise troubling substantive implications: The number of death sentences in a given county in a given year is better predicted by that county's previous experience in imposing death than by the number of homicides. This explains the previously observed fact that a large share of death sentences come from a small number of counties and documents the self-referential aspects of use the death penalty. A death sentencing system based on racial dynamics and then amplified by self-referential dynamics is inconsistent with equal protection of the law, but this describes the United States system well.
Journal Article
Philippine drug war and impending public health crisis
Many Asian countries strictly enforce extended incarceration or capital punishment for drug offences. 1 In addition to the existing minimum sentence of 12 years incarceration, the new drug war in the Philippines is thought to have driven the sharp increase in police shootings of suspected drug users and extrajudicial killings.
Journal Article
Achieving progress on ending the death penalty
The report outlines the many intersecting factors that exacerbate the basic injustice of capital punishment globally: its use against people who were younger than 18 years old when their alleged crimes were committed; its use against people with mental or intellectual disabilities; the imposition of death sentences following proceedings that do not meet international standards of a fair trial, including the use of military courts and confessions exacted through torture or other ill-treatment; and the...
Journal Article
Messing Up Texas?: A Re-Analysis of the Effects of Executions on Homicides
Executions in Texas from 1994-2005 do not deter homicides, contrary to the results of Land et al. (2009). We find that using different models--based on pre-tests for unit roots that correct for earlier model misspecifications--one cannot reject the null hypothesis that executions do not lead to a change in homicides in Texas over this period. Using additional control variables, we show that variables such as the number of prisoners in Texas may drive the main drop in homicides over this period. Such conclusions however are highly sensitive to model specification decisions, calling into question the assumptions about fixed parameters and constant structural relationships. This means that using dynamic regressions to account for policy changes that may affect homicides need to be done with significant care and attention.
Journal Article
Condemning the death penalty
In the USA, as evidence accumulates for racial disparities, miscarriages of justice, and the sentencing of several people who had mental illness, four states have stopped the death penalty since 2008, most recently Maryland in 2013.
Journal Article