A new study published on the Social Science Resource Network by a group of professors at Cornell University found a high incidence of racial disparities in the operation of Delaware’s death penalty. The study, published in conjunction with a symposium honoring the late David Baldus (pictured), examined the state’s death penalty since 1972 and found:
- Of 49 defendants sentenced to death since 1972, 53% were black, 39% were white, and 8% were Hispanic or Native American. In contrast, 69% of Delaware’s population is white, 21% is black, and 8% are Hispanic.
- Thirty-five of the 49 cases (73%) involved a white victim. Of the current death row inmates, 59% were convicted of murdering white victims and 41% were convicted of murdering black victims.
- Of the current death row population in Delaware, 59% are black, 23% are white, and 18% are Hispanic. Combined, the minority population comprises 77% of the state's death row. Nationally, the minority population accounts for approximately 56% of the death row population.
- Even when compared to southern states, Delaware's rate of death sentencing for black defendants with white victims is unusually high; it is 75 percent higher than the next highest states, Georgia and Nevada, more than twice as high as that of South Carolina or Virginia, and more than three times as high as that of its near neighbors, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Read full text of study here.
Use of the death penalty has decreased in South Carolina, and some state officials are pointing to the high costs and uncertainty of capital punishment as reasons for this decline. The state has had only one execution in the past three years, and the size of death row has declined almost 30% since 2005. No one was sentenced to death in 2011. Prosecutor David Pascoe initially planned to seek the death penalty for a mother who killed her two children, but later changed his mind, with cost being one factor: "Once you file for the death penalty, the clock gets moving and the money, the taxpayers start paying for that trial," he said. Representative Tommy Pope (pictured), a state legislator and former prosecutor who sought the death penalty for Susan Smith in a similar murder, now would tell victims' families to consider agreeing to a life-without-parole sentence instead of the death penalty. Life without parole was adopted by the state in 1995. It "allow[s] them a measure of closure that three retrials in a death penalty case never would," Pope said. 
A recent study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology about the U.S. Military death penalty system found that racial disparities among those sentenced to death are worse in the military than in other criminal courts. The study, conducted by Catherine Grosso of Michigan State's College of Law, the late David Baldus of the University of Iowa College of Law, and others, reviewed all potentially death-eligible military prosecutions from 1984 to 2005 and identified 105 death-eligible murder cases. The study found that defendants of color in the military are twice as likely as white defendants to be sentenced to death. The researchers said the disparities against defendants of color “sharply distinguishes the military system from the typical civilian system” at a “magnitude that is rarely seen in court systems.” In typical studies on the civilian side, the likelihood of a death sentence increased when the victim in the underlying crime was white, and was even more pronounced if the defendant was a person of color. In U.S. military courts, however, discrimination based on the race of defendant - regardless of the race of victim - was more prominent. The researchers argued that limiting the military death penalty to the most aggravated and heinous crimes - e.g., murder of a commissioned officer or a premeditated attack on U.S. troops resulting in death - would reduce racial disparities. Grosso concluded, “If race is on the table, if it puts a thumb on the scale, that’s injustice. These findings speak for themselves. They reflect how the military criminal justice system is operating, and it can do better.” 
The first hearing under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act convened at the beginning of February for death row inmate Marcus Robinson. The Racial Justice Act was passed in 2009, allowing death row inmates to use empirical and statistical data to demonstrate racial bias in their conviction or sentencing. Following changes in North Carolina's legislature in the 2010 elections, there were efforts to repeal the Act. Governor Perdue vetoed a repeal bill and the legislature could not override her veto. Robinson, who is black, was sentenced to death for a 1991 murder of a white victim. He is seeking to have his sentence reduced to life without parole by showing racial bias in the jury selection for his trial. Barbara O’Brien, an expert in this area from Michigan State University, testified that state prosecutors in capital trials excluded qualified black jurors at more than twice the rate of qualified non-black jurors. For Robinson’s jury pool, qualified blacks where 3.5 times more likely to be rejected. O’Brien said, “Being black does predict whether or not the state will strike the potential juror, even when controlling for these other variables.” Robinson’s hearing is expected to conclude by mid-February, and the presiding judge’s decision will shape the way the new law is interpreted in the future. Other studies in North Carolina have shown that those who murder white victims are more likely to receive the death penalty than those who murder black victims.
Professor Victor Streib (pictured) of the Ohio Northern University Law School has published the latest edition of his periodic reports, Death Penalty for Female Offenders. This study offers statistics and information related to women who have been executed or are currently on death row. Among the report’s findings are: 
(On January 10,