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Page Number: 62

12 

GLOSSIP v. GROSS 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

with  Statistics:  Furman,  McCleskey,  and  a  Single  County
Case  Study,  34  Cardozo  L. Rev.  1227,  1245–1251  (2013) 
(same  conclusion  drawn  from  20  plus  studies  conducted
between 1990 and 2013).

Fewer, but still many, studies have found that the gen­
der  of  the  defendant  or  the  gender  of  the  victim  makes  a 
not-otherwise-warranted  difference.    Id.,  at  1251–1253 
(citing many studies).

Geography  also  plays  an  important  role  in  determining 
who  is  sentenced  to  death.    See  id.,  at  1253–1256.  And 
that  is  not  simply  because  some  States  permit  the  death 
penalty  while  others  do  not.    Rather  within  a  death  pen­
alty State, the imposition of the death penalty heavily de- 
pends on the county in which a defendant is tried.  Smith, 
The  Geography  of  the  Death  Penalty  and  its  Ramifica­
tions,  92  B.  U.  L. Rev.  227,  231–232  (2012)  (hereinafter 
Smith);  see  also  Donohue,  supra,  at  673  (“[T]he  single
most  important  influence  from  1973–2007  explaining
whether a death-eligible defendant [in Connecticut] would 
be  sentenced  to  death  was  whether  the  crime  occurred  in 
Waterbury [County]”).  Between 2004 and 2009, for exam­
ple,  just  29  counties  (fewer  than  1%  of  counties  in  the 
country)  accounted  for  approximately  half  of  all  death
sentences imposed nationwide.  Smith 233.  And in 2012, 
just 59 counties (fewer than 2% of counties in the country) 
accounted  for  all  death  sentences  imposed  nationwide. 
DPIC, The 2% Death Penalty: How A Minority of Counties
Produce  Most  Death  Cases  At  Enormous  Costs  to  All  9 
(Oct. 2013).

What  accounts  for  this  county-by-county  disparity?
Some studies indicate that the disparity  reflects the deci­
sionmaking authority, the legal discretion, and ultimately 
the  power  of  the  local  prosecutor.    See,  e.g.,  Goelzhauser, 
Prosecutorial  Discretion  Under  Resource  Constraints: 
Budget  Allocations  and  Local  Death-Charging  Decisions, 
96  Judicature  161,  162–163  (2013);  Barnes,  Sloss,  &