News and Developments 2007: Studies

Professor John Donohue of Yale University's School of Law recently conducted a study of death sentences in Connecticut and found that seeking the death penalty often correlated with the race of the victim and the defendant, and not necessarily with the severity of the crimes, as the law requires. "There was basically no rational system to explain who got the death penalty," Donohue said. "It really is about as random a process as you can possibly construct."

U.S. Supreme Court stayed the Alabama execution scheduled for night of Jan. 31.

Watch the Independent Film Channel's piece on the U.S. Supreme Court case regarding lethal injection, Baze v. Rees. The video also includes a discussion of death penalty trends with DPIC's Richard Dieter and an interview with former Texas death row chaplain Carroll Pickett.

2007: DPIC's Year End Report

The Justice Project recently released two policy reviews that provide suggestions for preventing wrongful convictions in criminal trials. Using research and data from past exonerations, the new reports, Expanded Discovery in Criminal Cases and Jailhouse Snitch Testimony, point to the places and situations in the criminal justice system where a wrongful conviction can be easily prevented.

Expanded Discovery in Criminal Cases stresses the importance of full evidentiary discovery in criminal cases. “Discovery” refers to how the prosecution must disclose all non-privileged information that is relevant in the criminal case before it goes to trial. The Justice Project notes, “All other aspects of our constitutional system, such as due process and assistance of counsel, depend on complete discovery.” Amongst other solutions, they recommend that uniform, mandatory, and enforced discovery laws be put in place to prevent wrongful convictions.

Jailhouse Snitch Testimony highlights the prevalence of this form of questionable evidence in trials. Jailhouse snitch testimony refers to an inmate testifying against another for his or her own personal gain (e.g., reduced time in prison in exchange for the testimony). It is often used despite being unreliable. According to the report, “A 2005 study of 111 death row exonerees found that 51 were wrongly sentenced to death in part due to testimony of witnesses with incentive to lie.” The Justice Project calls upon prosecutors to raise the standards for admissibility of jailhouse informant evidence at trial, including finding outside corroboration for the informant’s testimony and providing instructions to the jury that alert them to the reliability issues presented by snitch testimony.

If current trends continue, New York City will likely have fewer than 500 homicides this year, the lowest number in a 12-month period since reliable NYC Police Department statistics became available in 1963. As of November 18, 2007, the police department logged 428 killings, the majority of which were committed by friends or acquaintances or were drug or gang-related. In fact, only 35 homicides this year were committed by strangers to the victims, a number described as "microscopic" in a city of 8.2 million.

Thomas Reppetto, a police historian, noted: "Not only has the N.Y.P.D. reduced murder, by nearly 80%, but it has changed the pattern of homicides." In 1990, New York recorded its highest number of murders at 2,245, with many of the victims being killed by strangers. Of the 412 murders this year, many assailants and victims had previous arrests for narcotics. Overall, crime rates in New York City are down 6.47%.