On Anniversary of Furman v. Georgia, DPIC Census of U.S. Death Sentences Details 50 Years of Arbitrariness, Bias, and Error

On the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 29, 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia that struck down all existing death penalty laws, the Death Penalty Information Center is releasing the Death Penalty Census. The census is the most comprehensive database of death sentences ever assembled, containing more than 9,700 death sentences (click to enlarge image). In the census, DPIC has attempted to identify every death sentence handed down in the U.S. from the day Furman was decided through January 1, 2021 and track the status of each sentence. The data provide powerful evidence that the nation’s use of capital punishment continues to be arbitrary, discriminatory, and rife with error.

“After 50 years, the data show a wasteful punishment, incompetently applied and beset by arbitrary factors such as race, place, and time,” said Robert Dunham, DPIC’s Executive Director. “The most likely outcome of a death sentence once it is imposed is that it will be overturned. Fewer than 1.1% of counties account for half of death row. Thirty-year-old cases are coming up for execution that wouldn’t even be capitally prosecuted today. And when you look behind the data, the features that best characterize executions — race of victim, vulnerable defendants, what side of the county line the crime occurred and when it was tried, and the lack of meaningful judicial process — are all illegitimate bases to administer the law. The Court said America wasn’t able to administer the death penalty fairly or reliably a half century ago. The data show we still can’t do it today.”

The database contains the name, race, and gender of each defendant sentenced to death; the state and county (or federal district or military branch) of prosecution; the year of sentencing; the outcome of the particular sentence; and the final outcome or current status of the case.

DPIC’s analysis of the newly released data finds that five of six death sentences have not resulted in an execution. The single most likely outcome of a capital case once a death sentence is imposed is that the conviction or death sentence will be overturned and the defendant will not be resentenced to death. A death sentence is 3 times more likely to be reversed as a result of a court decision than it is to result in an execution.

Mississippi Gives Department of Corrections Unprecedented Discretion Over Execution Methods

Mississippi corrections officials will have unprecedented discretion in selecting how the state’s death-row prisoners will be executed under a new law that takes effect July 1, 2022.

Mississippi authorizes execution by lethal injection, electrocution, firing squad, or nitrogen hypoxia. The law, which received final legislative approval March 29 and was signed by Governor Tate Reeves April 14, provides that the Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC), MDOC’s Deputy Commissioner for Finance and Administration, and the MDOC Deputy Commissioner for Institutions with statutory authority to select “at the[ir] discretion” select which of those methods will be used to execute a prisoner.

Under the state’s previous death-penalty law, death-row prisoners could elect which method would be used for their execution. The new law places that decision in the hands of the Commissioner of Corrections, who must inform the prisoner of the method to be used within seven days of receiving an execution warrant. The law does not tell the commissioner how to determine which method to be used and provides no transparency regarding how that choice is made.

“We put language in the final draft saying it is our policy, as the Legislature, that lethal injection be chosen,” bill sponsor Rep. Nick Bain (R-Corinth) said. “That gives (the commissioner) the idea that we want lethal injection and that should be the way to do it.” MDOC Commissioner Burl Cain said in a statement, “The courts are the ones who decide the penalties for crime, not MDOC. We just hold the keys. When the court orders me, I am required by Mississippi statute to carry out the sentence.”

The combination of Mississippi’s extreme execution secrecy and late disclosure of its intended execution method provides prisoners no meaningful notice of how they will be put to death. Those factors “basically guarantee[ ] a lot of last-minute litigation” after a death warrant is issued, Death Penalty Information Center Deputy Director Ngozi Ndulue told Mississippi Today.

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