Processing and Outcome of Death Penalty Appeals After Furman v. Georgia, 1973-1995:  [United States]

This data collection effort was undertaken to analyze the
outcomes of capital appeals in the United States between 1973 and 1995
and as a means of assessing the reliability of death penalty verdicts
(also referred to herein as "capital judgments" or "death penalty
judgments") imposed under modern death-sentencing procedures. Those
procedures have been adopted since the decision in Furman v. Georgia
in 1972. The United States Supreme Court's ruling in that case
invalidated all then-existing death penalty laws, determining that the
death penalty was applied in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner and
violated Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual
punishment. Data provided in this collection include state
characteristics and the outcomes of review of death verdicts by state
and year at the state direct appeal, state post-conviction, federal
habeas corpus, and all three stages of review (Part 1). Data were
compiled from published and unpublished official and archived
sources. Also provided in this collection are state and county
characteristics and the outcome of review of death verdicts by county,
state, and year at the state direct appeal, state post-conviction,
federal habeas corpus, and all three stages of review (Part 2). After
designing a systematic method for identifying official court decisions
in capital appeals and state and federal post-conviction proceedings
(no official or unofficial lists of those decisions existed prior to
this study), the authors created three databases original to this
study using information reported in those decisions. The first of the
three original databases assembled as part of this project was the
Direct Appeal Database (DADB) (Part 3). This database contains
information on the timing and outcome of decisions on state direct
appeals of capital verdicts imposed in all years during the 1973-1995
study period in which the relevant state had a valid post-Furman
capital statute. The appeals in this database include all those that
were identified as having been finally decided during the 1973 to 1995
period (sometimes called "the study period"). The second original
database, State Post-Conviction Database (SPCDB) (Part 4), contains a
list of capital verdicts that were imposed during the years between
1973 and 2000 when the relevant state had a valid post-Furman capital
statute and that were finally reversed on state post-conviction review
between 1973 and April 2000. The third original database, Habeas
Corpus Database (HCDB) (Part 5), contains information on all decisions
of initial (non-successive) capital federal habeas corpus cases
between 1973 and 1995 that finally reviewed capital verdicts imposed
during the years 1973 to 1995 when the relevant state had a valid
post-Furman capital statute. Part 1 variables include state and state
population, population density, death sentence year, year the state
enacted a valid post-Furman capital statute, total homicides, number
of African-Americans in the state population, number of white and
African-American homicide victims, number of prison inmates, number of
FBI Index Crimes, number of civil, criminal, and felony court cases
awaiting decision, number of death verdicts, number of Black
defendants sentenced to death, rate of white victims of homicides for
which defendants were sentenced to death per 100 white homicide
victims, percentage of death row inmates sentenced to death for
offenses against at least one white victim, number of death verdicts
reviewed, awaiting review, and granted relief at all three states of
review, number of welfare recipients and welfare expenditures, direct
expenditures on the court system, party-adjusted judicial ideology
index, political pressure index, and several other created
variables. Part 2 provides this same state-level information and also
provides similar variables at the county level. Court expenditure and
welfare data are not provided in Part 2, however. Part 3 provides data
on each capital direct appeal decision, including state, FIPS state
and county code for trial court county, year of death verdict, year of
decision, whether the verdict was affirmed or reversed, and year of
first fully valid post-Furman statute. The date and citation for
rehearing in the state system and on certiorari to the United States
Supreme Court are provided in some cases. For reversals in Part 4
information was collected about state of death verdict, FIPS state and
county code for trial court county, year of death verdict, date of
relief, basis for reversal, stage of trial and aspect of verdict
(guilty of aggravated capital murder, death sentence) affected by
reversal, outcome on retrial, and citation. Part 5 variables include
state, FIPS state and county codes for trial court county, year of
death verdict, defendant's history of alcohol or drug abuse, whether
the defendant was intoxicated at the time of the crime, whether the
defense attorney was from in-state, whether the defendant was
connected to the community where the crime occurred, whether the
victim had a high standing in the community, sex of the victim,
whether the defendant had a prior record, whether a state evidentiary
hearing was held, number of claims for final federal decision, whether
a majority of the judges voting to reverse were appointed by
Republican presidents, aggravating and mitigating circumstances,
whether habeas corpus relief was granted, what claims for habeas
corpus relief were presented, and the outcome on each claim that was
presented. Part 5 also includes citations to the direct appeal
decision, the state post-conviction decision (last state decision on
merits), the judicial decision at the pre-penultimate federal stage,
the decision at the penultimate federal stage, and the final federal
decision.

Tags: appeal-procedures, appellate-courts, capital-punishment, civil-rights, death-row-inmates, habeas-corpus, judicial-decisions, judicial-review, legal-appeals, supreme-court-decisions
Organization: Department of Justice