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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:56 am
Time: 3:56 am
Results for capital punishment (connecticut)
2 results foundAuthor: Donohue, John Title: Capital Punishment in Connecticut, 1973-2007: A Comprehensive Evaluation from 4684 Murders to One Execution Summary: This study explores and evaluates the application of the death penalty in Connecticut from 1973 until 2007, a period during which 4686 murders were committed in the state. The objective is to assess whether the system operates lawfully and reasonably or is marred by arbitrariness, caprice, or discrimination. My empirical approach has three components. First, I provide background information on the overall numbers of murders, death sentences, and executions in Connecticut. The extreme infrequency with which the death penalty is administered in Connecticut raises a serious question as to whether the state’s death penalty regime is serving any legitimate social purpose. Specifically, of the 4686 murders committed during the sample period, 205 are death-eligible cases that resulted in a homicide conviction, and 138 of these were charged with a capital felony. Of the 92 convicted of a capital felony, 29 then went to a death penalty sentencing hearing, resulting in 9 sustained death sentences, and one execution (in 2005). A comprehensive assessment of this process of winnowing reveals a troubling picture. Overall, the state’s record of handling death-eligible cases represents a chaotic and unsound criminal justice policy that serves neither deterrence nor retribution. Second, mindful of the Supreme Court’s mandate that “[c]apital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit ‘a narrow category of the most serious crimes’ and whose extreme culpability makes them ‘the most deserving of execution,’”3I evaluate whether the crimes that result in sustained death sentences are the most egregious relative to other death-eligible murders. Any claim to properly punishing such a narrow and specific category of the most serious offenses can definitively be put to rest. The Connecticut death penalty regime does not select from the class of death-eligible defendants those most deserving of execution. At best, the Connecticut system haphazardly singles out a handful for execution from a substantial array of horrible murders. Third, I conduct a multiple regression to test more formally for the presence of arbitrariness or discrimination in implementing the death penalty. Specifically, I examine the impact on capital charging and sentencing decisions of legitimate factors that bear on the deathworthiness of 205 death-eligible cases, as well as legally suspect variables—such as race and gender of the defendant, race of victim, or judicial district in which the murder occurred. The Connecticut death penalty system decidedly fails this inquiry; arbitrariness and discrimination are defining features of the state’s capital punishment regime. Details: Stanford, CA: The Author, 2011. 456p. Source: Available at the Don M. Gottfredson Library of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 123563 Keywords: Capital Punishment (Connecticut)Death PenaltyHomicides |
Author: Donohue, John J., III Title: An Empirical Evaluation of the Connecticut Death Penalty System Since 1973: Are There Unlawful Racial, Gender, and Geographic Disparities? Summary: This article analyzes the 205 death-eligible murders leading to homicide convictions in Connecticut from 1973-2007 to determine if discriminatory and arbitrary factors influenced capital outcomes. A regression analysis controlling for an array of legitimate factors relevant to the crime, defendant, and victim provides overwhelming evidence that minority defendants who kill white victims are capitally charged at substantially higher rates than minority defendants who kill minorities, that geography influences both capital charging and sentencing decisions (with the location of a crime in Waterbury being the single most potent influence on which death-eligible cases will lead to a sentence of death), and that the Connecticut death penalty system has not limited its application to the worst of the worst death-eligible defendants. The work of an expert hired by the State of Connecticut provided emphatic, independent confirmation of these three findings, and found that women who commit death-eligible crimes are less likely than men to be sentenced to death. There is also strong and statistically significant evidence that minority defendants who kill whites are more likely to end up with capital sentences than comparable cases with white defendants. Regression estimates of the effect of both race and geography on death sentencing reveal the disparities can be glaring. Considering the most common type of death-eligible murder - a multiple victim homicide - a white on white murder of average egregiousness outside Waterbury has a .57 percent chance of being sentenced to death, while a minority committing the identical crime on white victims in Waterbury would face a 91.2 percent likelihood. In other words, the minority defendant in Waterbury would be 160 times more likely to get a sustained death sentence than the comparable white defendant in the rest of the state. Among the nine Connecticut defendants to receive sustained death sentences over the study period, only Michael Ross comports with the dictates that "within the category of capital crimes, the death penalty must be reserved for 'the worst of the worst.'" For the eight defendants on death row (after the 2005 execution of Ross), the median number of equally or more egregious death-eligible cases that did not receive death sentences is between 35 and 46 (depending on the egregiousness measure). In light of the prospective abolition of the Connecticut death penalty in April 2012, which eliminated the deterrence rationale for the death penalty, Atkins v. Virginia teaches that unless the Connecticut death penalty regime "measurably contributes to [the goal of retribution], it is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering, and hence an unconstitutional punishment." Apart from Ross, the evidence suggests that the eight others residing on death row were not measurably more culpable than the many who were not capitally sentenced. Moreover, Connecticut imposed sustained death sentences at a rate of 4.4 percent (9 of 205). This rate of death sentencing is among the lowest in the nation and more than two-thirds lower than the 15 percent pre-Furman Georgia rate that was deemed constitutionally problematic in that "freakishly rare" sentences of death are likely to be arbitrary. Details: Forthcoming article, 2014. 84p. Source: Internet Resource: Working Paper: Accessed August 23, 2014 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2470082 Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2470082 Shelf Number: 133118 Keywords: Capital Punishment (Connecticut)Death PenaltyGender DisparitiesRacial Disparities |