Prisons - Death Row Demographics And Issues

"We know to a moral certainty that the single most important factor in whether a defendant receives a death sentence is the quality of his lawyer." — Edward Lazarus

Death row is the area of a prison where prisoners sentenced to death reside, sometimes for decades, as appeals of their convictions wend their way through the justice system. The map shows the nationwide distribution of the 3,718 death row inmates known to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund on July 1, 2002. The top 5 states (and their population rank) are California (1), Texas (2), Florida (4), Pennsylvania (6), and North Carolina (11).

The table shows the demographic breakdown of inmates on death row in July 2002 by race, gender, and juvenile status. Whites and blacks are represented in nearly equal numbers, but blacks make up 46% of the federal and state prison population, while whites make up 36%. Whether racial disparities exist in the application of the death penalty has been the subject of much discussion and study. In a summary of two of the studies, Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information

Inmates on Death Row: 2002

Characteristic	Number	% Death Row Pop	% 2001 Prison Pop
Race
White	1,683	45.27	36.10
Black	1,605	43.17	46.27
Latino/Latina	348	9.36	15.61*
Native American	41	1.10	NA
Asian	40	1.08	NA
Unknown	1	0.03	NA
Gender
Male	3,666	98.60	93.67
Female	52	1.40	6.32
Juveniles
Male	83	2.20	NA
Total	3,718		0.23
*Hispanic. NA Not available. Prison population includes state and federal.

Center, stated that in Philadelphia, the odds of receiving the death penalty were nearly 4 times higher if the defendant was black, and the disparity nationwide, he wrote, may be partially explained by the fact that the key decision makers are "almost exclusively white men." A 2000 U.S. Department of Justice study of the federal death penalty found that minorities made up 74% of 183 defendants in federal cases who were recommended for capital punishment between 1995 and 2000. That study found geographic differences in the application of the federal death penalty. Nine of 94 U.S. attorney districts accounted for 43% of all death penalty recommendations. Two were in the New York region, the rest in Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, New Mexico, Virginia, Maryland, and Puerto Rico.

In nearly every case, murder is the offense for which the death penalty is applied. All states that have the death penalty list murder as a punishable (capital) offense. Some states include treason, kidnapping, train robbery, perjury causing execution, drug trafficking, sexual battery, aircraft hijacking, child rape, and solicitation by command or threat in furtherance of a narcotics conspiracy.⁴ Twelve states do not have the death penalty (Alaska, Iowa, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota, West Virginia, Michigan, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia).

The application of the death penalty in Texas (where 457 people were on death row in 2002) came under national scrutiny during the 2000 presidential campaign. Texas has executed more people, including juveniles, the mentally ill, and the mentally retarded, than any other state. Of 218 people executed between 1982 and 2000; 131 died between the time George W. Bush was elected governor in 1995 and June 2000, when Bush told reporters: "I know there are some in the country who don't care for the death penalty, but I've said once and I've said a lot, that in every case, we've adequately answered innocence or guilt." Casting doubt on the adequacy of the Texas system was a June 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision refusing to grant the state's appeal in the case of Calvin Burdine. Burdine sought to overturn his 1983 conviction on the grounds that his court-appointed attorney had slept through much of the trial. In March 2000 U.S. District Judge David Hittner ordered Texas to either release or retry Burdine because it had been well established that his attorney slept and "a sleeping counsel is equivalent to no counsel at all."

In 2000 Illinois Governor George Ryan imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in the face of evidence that it was not being fairly applied. Two years later, the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment issued a report concluding: "The Commission was unanimous in its belief that no system, given human nature and frailties, could ever be devised or constructed that would work perfectly and guarantee absolutely that no innocent person is ever again sentenced to death." Supporting that contention is this posting on the Web site of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law: As of November 14, 2002, 115 wrongfully convicted people were exonerated after DNA testing sponsored by the Project proved their innocence.

The Supreme Court has been in the headlines with several decisions, among them a June 2002 ruling that executing mentally retarded prisoners violates the 14th Amendment provision against cruel and unusual punishment. In October 2002 the Supreme Court refused by a 5-4 vote to reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty for juveniles (or those who committed their crime as juveniles). However, in dissenting, Justice John Paul Stevens opined: "The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society." To get back to statistics, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had this to say in July 2001: "If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed."

The graphic shows how occupancy on death row grew since 1968 and how the violent crime victimization rate started to trend down in 1995. A majority of the public (70%) favors the death penalty, according to a Gallup Poll (October 29, 2002). Those in favor contend that even if there is no deterrent effect, we are well rid of the murderers who are executed. The United States has been criticized in the international community for its imposition of the death penalty. The Columbia Encyclopedia reports that as of 2001, the United States and China imposed the penalty more frequently than any country that allows it.

Inmates on Death Row and Violent Crime Trend

In recent years, Pope John Paul II has interceded on behalf of American death row inmates, but the death row inmate's chance of being granted clemency for humanitarian reasons is not very good. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, only 48 inmates were granted clemency between 1976 and 2002. Reasons ranged from doubt about the prisoner's guilt, contention that the sentence was out of proportion to the crime, and questions about the prisoner's mental capacity. The center also reports that between 1973 and August 2002, 102 people were released from death row with evidence of their innocence.

Violent Crime Victimizations Death Row Inmates 3,718

Sources: Graphic and table: Deborah Fins, Death Row USA,, Criminal Justice Project of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDEF), Summer 2002, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/DEATHROWUSArecent.pdf. Small graphic: "Size of Death Row by Year (1968-Present)," Death Penalty Information Center, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/DRowInfo.html#year; Primary sources: BJS, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1999, Capital Punishment 1999; LDEF. Richard C. Dieter, "The Death Penalty in Black & White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides," Death Penalty Information Center, June 1998, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/racerpt.html#ExecutiveSummary. District Court's decision in Burdine v Johnson, http://www5.law.com/tx/today/burdine.htm. Innocence Project, http://www.innocenceproject.org/. Robert L. Jackson, "Study Finds Racial Gap on Death Row, Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2000, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/091300-02.htm. Edward Lazarus, "A Basic Death Penalty Paradox That Is Tearing the Supreme Court Apart," October 31, 2002, http://writ.findlaw.com/lazarus/20021031.html