GMontag's Journal: Old Capital Punishment News

Well, it seems that a study by three Cornell University faculty members as reported in Cornell News disproves the "conventional wisdom" again: Cornell study reveals surprising findings on death row, race and the most death penalty-prone states

The relatively large size of death rows in Texas, California and Florida "shape the conventional belief that these jurisdictions, especially Texas, have high death sentence rates," wrote the authors, "[but] after accounting for a state's number of murders, Oklahoma and Nevada are more death-prone states than any of the 'big three.'" Oklahoma sentences at a rate of 6 percent; Nevada at 5.1 percent; and Texas at 2 percent. The national average is 2.5 percent. "The reality is that most death-prone states are under the radar," said Eisenberg, a professor at Cornell Law School.

The view that Texas is the most death penalty-prone state stems partly from the high number of murders committed in the state, 38,000 from 1976 to 1998, leading to 776 death sentences and 319 executions. While the study did not consider executions, Texas' rate is indeed high when compared with California, which had 50,000 murders in that same time period, sentenced 795 people to death between 1976 and 2002 and executed 10.

However, Texas is among the states that assign the death penalty only to certain kinds of murder, such as those of a police officer or witness, and as a result have lower death sentencing rates than those using more subjective standards, such as the heinous nature of a crime, the study noted. The states with the more objective laws assigned the death penalty less (about 1.9 percent in 1977-99) than those with the more subjective laws (which assigned it about 2.7 percent during that period).

Looks like "tolerant" California is about as "tolerant" as Stalin.

Well...

[leviramsey]

They had 19 (2.4%) more death sentences, despite 31.5% more murders...

Re:Well...

[Jaguar777]

Maybe he meant the citizens of California weren't very tolerant.
They did have 50,000 murders ;)

looks like?

[Here I Stand]

Looks like "tolerant" California is about as "tolerant" as Stalin

is that the key talking point to take out of this given the numbers that they cite? i.e. 776 death sentences for 38,000 murders vs. 795 death sentences for 50,000 (let's not bother looking at the actual number of sentences carried out)

how about how clearly set out standards - "objective laws" in states like Texas differ from "subjective" criteria? this is an interesting one.

or

that killing a white person is more likely to put you on de

Yay...

[Camulus]

Oklahoma is finally number one at something.