Penn State researchers analyze death penalty findings

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrkVn_fXp9K-yZSjfNh-qqaojqXfUUSVsnbbvsIaTYDxGoSLc-zpJbrOwfU8LPBe13S2-M3olivI5URk25X5MWdt6WNzptAAvdXnCfKR6DA76BhFOJvayB0t5u-2JQntdH1O4l7AT6jCw/s1600/archives-and-records.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Archives and records" border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrkVn_fXp9K-yZSjfNh-qqaojqXfUUSVsnbbvsIaTYDxGoSLc-zpJbrOwfU8LPBe13S2-M3olivI5URk25X5MWdt6WNzptAAvdXnCfKR6DA76BhFOJvayB0t5u-2JQntdH1O4l7AT6jCw/s400/archives-and-records.jpg" title="Archives and records" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Penn State researchers studying whether racial bias affects the imposition of the death penalty have begun crunching the data, a move signaling the end of a 4-year saga of waiting on a state report that has officially halted executions in the state.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Penn State findings might be made public before year's end.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While the analysis is in the early stages, the professor leading the research said he expects similar findings to what the Reading Eagle reported last week on the distribution of death sentences in Pennsylvania.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I think it'll be a good complement to what you've done, with some details that will flesh out the issues that you've raised," said John Kramer, a retired Penn State criminology professor. "I don't suspect that it will erase the (Eagle's) findings."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In an investigation spanning 5 months, the Eagle found Pennsylvania has sentenced 408 defendants to death since 1978, at a rate of 1.6 death sentences for every 100 homicides. The rate for counties varied from zero to more than 7, indicating wide prosecutorial discretion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 1972 decision in <i>Furman v. Georgia</i> that found capital punishment unconstitutional, states created statutes that were intended to make its application less arbitrary, particularly for black defendants.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Going back to the Furman decision, the question is: Have we controlled that kind of discretion adequately?" Kramer said. "I'm sure we will cite your article when we're reviewing our data."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The meticulous gathering of data on more than 900 first-degree murder cases from 2000 to 2010 in 18 counties has been tedious and painstakingly slow, pushing a state report that was expected 3 years ago back several times.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kramer's team has been out in the field since 2012 poring over court files in counties stretching from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to identify charging and sentencing patterns in 1st-degree murder cases. The death penalty is reserved almost exclusively for the crime of murder.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Researchers hope to learn whether race is a factor in who is charged capitally and ultimately sentenced to death in Pennsylvania.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This investigation will be folded into the study state lawmakers called for in 2011. That report, by the Joint State Government Commission, isn't expected until six months after Penn State concludes its study for the Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As directed by lawmakers, the state report will examine 17 issues around the death penalty, including its cost, deterrence and quality of counsel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The commission's reports often are completed within a year and include recommendations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recommendations in the long awaited report, however, will likely relate to data collection, which is sorely lacking. The Joint State Government Commission will not be recommending whether to continue to support or abolish the death penalty, said Glenn Pasewicz, executive director of the Joint State Government Commission.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"From the beginning, it was not the intent that the report would come up with some firm recommendations about what capital punishment should be in Pennsylvania," Pasewicz said. "We're going to leave the big questions to the Legislature itself. We'll provide them with as much information as we can, and they can sort it all out."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For years, Pennsylvania's death penalty system has been a source of consternation among those on both sides of the issue. Having sentenced hundreds in the modern era and executed only 3, it is widely perceived as dysfunctional.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Another round</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It has been studied before.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1999, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court directed a study on whether racial or gender bias influences the judicial system, including the death penalty. In the committee's 550-page report in 2003, it made more than 170 recommendations, including issuing a moratorium on executions. Gov. Tom Wolf issued one last year, saying executions would not resume until the state report is completed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Based on existing data and studies, the committee concluded that there are strong indications that Pennsylvania's capital justice system does not operate in an evenhanded manner," the group's report said, noting the responsibility of ensuring equal justice under the law cannot fall to a single branch of government.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The committee also took aim at the quality of capital representation, which the Eagle explored last fall, finding nearly 1 in5 inmates sentenced to death in Pennsylvania the past decade were represented by attorneys disciplined for professional misconduct at some point in their careers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The committee's report said of capital representation, "Unless the poor, among whom minority communities are overrepresented, are provided adequate legal representation, including ample funds for experts and investigators, there cannot be a lasting solution to the issue of racial and ethnic bias in the capital system."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The group also recommended original research to study the issue further.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It's critical that we do our own studies," said Lisette McCormick, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness, which conducted the review at the Supreme Court's direction.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>'There are gaps'</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Established in 2005 by Pennsylvania's three branches of government, the Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness is tasked with addressing inequities in the court system.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">McCormick added, noting there is no systematic data collection on Pennsylvania's death penalty: "There are gaps. You cannot conduct a valid study with gaps."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Penn State report - Kramer said an internal draft would be completed next month - was commissioned in part to address this gap. McCormick's group is funding the report at a cost of about $325,000.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Eagle's cost and sentence-distribution findings, McCormick said, were consistent with other studies she's reviewed for the current state study.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The shortage of original research on Pennsylvania's death penalty system, Kramer and McCormick said, is directly related to the difficulty of winnowing out information buried, oftentimes in storage, in hundreds of case boxes across the commonwealth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kramer's data collectors could examine, at their quickest pace, a maximum of 5 cases a day and averaged only 3 or 4. And some days, they would sift through case boxes and collect no pertinent data.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There's just not any data that you can put together to do this study without investing a tremendous amount of time," Kramer said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Reading Eagle, June 16, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

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Penn State researchers studying whether racial bias affects the imposition of the death penalty have begun crunching the data, a move signal...

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U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Another Alabama Death Penalty Case

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEmO7Sxl9DNil3OtfIhNzbcg4CS9MmIbPlCY081Za6toTAUDsYKD5Q6FttSoPxVp_51615DOufWFIcLGpNpVHL61I_6HPzHKLWngEf2t-Pcd1avkqpWBc-hg_l1RDk9H83OCrLpE8Aouc/s1600/welcome-alabama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEmO7Sxl9DNil3OtfIhNzbcg4CS9MmIbPlCY081Za6toTAUDsYKD5Q6FttSoPxVp_51615DOufWFIcLGpNpVHL61I_6HPzHKLWngEf2t-Pcd1avkqpWBc-hg_l1RDk9H83OCrLpE8Aouc/s320/welcome-alabama.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the 4th time in 2 months, the United States Supreme Court today overturned an Alabama death penalty case in which EJI challenged the conviction and sentence affirmed by state courts. This time, the Court reversed because of concerns about racial bias in jury selection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Christopher Floyd was tried by an all-white jury in Houston County, Alabama, where African Americans comprise 27 % of the population. The prosecutor, Doug Valeska, has a documented history of racial discrimination in jury selection. The prosecution marked African American potential jurors with a "B" on its list of jurors to remove, then removed 10 of 11 qualified black prospective jurors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 of the black jurors barred from jury service provided answers to all of the prosecution's questions during jury selection, but the prosecutor said that she did not respond to any questions and so he could not provide a race-neutral reason for removing her. EJI argued on appeal that because the prosecutor's assertion was not true, relief was required. The state courts nonetheless refused to grant relief.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme Court today granted Mr. Floyd's request for review, reversed the state court decision, and ordered the state court to re-examine the case. The Court referred to its recent decision in <i>Foster v. Chatman</i>, in which it held that Georgia prosecutors illegally barred African Americans from serving on Mr. Foster's jury because of their race.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Racial bias has been a longstanding problem in Alabama, where more than 2 dozen cases have been reversed after courts found that prosecutors engaged in intentional racial discrimination during jury selection. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Equal Justice Initiative has long argued that racial bias in jury selection is a serious problem in Alabama, particularly in capital trials, where too few prosecutors have ended the practice of unfairly excluding African Americans.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Equal Justice Initiative, June 21, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">SCOTUS demands new look at race of jurors of death penalty conviction in Alabama</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The U.S. Supreme Court says lower courts in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi must re-examine 3 death penalty convictions for evidence of racial prejudice in jury selection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The court ruled Monday in the cases of Christopher Floyd of Alabama, Jabari Williams of Louisiana and Curtis Giovanni Flowers of Mississippi.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The brief decisions followed the court's May decision to overturn the conviction and death sentence of a Georgia man because of evidence that prosecutors intentionally excluded black people from the jury.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The May decision broke no new ground in efforts to fight racial discrimination in jury selection, but underscored a 30-year-old high court ruling that took aim at the exclusion of minorities from juries.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Flowers was convicted after 5 previous trials over the slaying of 4 people in a furniture store.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Associated Press, June 21, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">US Supreme Court orders Curtis Flowers Hearing</span></b><br /><br />The US Supreme Court orders Mississippi to re-examine Curtis Flowers death penalty conviction for evidence of racial prejudice in jury selection.<br /><br />Curtis Flowers has been on death row in the 1996 killing of Winona furniture store owner Bertha Tardy and 3 of her employees. The US Supreme Court threw out today the Mississippi high court's 2014 decision affirming Flowers conviction and death sentence and told the court to look again at Flowers' claim that African American jurors were excluded from his last trial in 2010 for racial reasons.<br /><br />The decision didn't throw out Flowers conviction and death sentence but ordered the State Supreme Court to re-examine whether African American jurors were purposely excluded from serving on Flowers trial which could win Flowers a new trial.<br /><br />Source: Delta News, June 21, 2016<br /><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

African-American Alabama Georgia Jury Louisiana Mississippi Race SCOTUS USA U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Another Alabama Death Penalty Case

For the 4th time in 2 months, the United States Supreme Court today overturned an Alabama death penalty case in which EJI challenged the con...

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