When the Supreme Court revived the death penalty in 1976, it did so on the premise that it would
affect only the so-called “worst of the worst” — people who “commit a narrow category of the
most serious crimes” and demonstrate “extreme culpability.” Yet today, nearly 50 years and
3
countless reform efforts later, the death penalty still targets not the worst of the worst, but rather
the unluckiest of the unluckiest: people who endured sexual abuse and other unspeakable trauma
as children; people with long histories of severe mental illness or traumatic brain injuries,
including people struggling with PTSD after serving in the military; people who committed
crimes during a psychotic break they can’t even remember; people who, because of incomplete
cognitive development or other intellectual disability, have never been able to fully function as
adults; people with trial lawyers so derelict in their duties and obligations that they never
bothered to uncover long histories of illness and trauma. This, tragically, is the profile of death
row in America.
We have also seen that racial biases are embedded deep within our system of capital punishment.
People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 44% of executions in the United States
since 1976 and 58% of defendants currently awaiting execution are people of color. Black
4
defendants accused of crimes against white victims are far more likely to receive the death
penalty than other groups. Strikingly, while about 76% of all death penalty cases involve white
5
victims, only one-half of all murder victims are white.
6
The U.S.’s acceptance of capital punishment is particularly unconscionable given that we know
our system too often convicts innocent people. At least 186 people on death row have been
exonerated over the last half-century; for every nine people who have been executed since 1976,
at least one condemned person has been exonerated. While we will never know how many
7
innocent people we have executed, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that over 4% of
current death row prisoners are innocent. And, even in cases that do not lead to a death sentence,
8
the mere prospect of capital punishment can corrupt and corrode the workings of the justice
system, compelling innocent people to plead guilty and witnesses to deliver false testimony. In
fact, the use or threat of the death penalty was a factor in more than 13% of exonerations across
the U.S. in 2019.
9
9
DPIC analysis: Use or threat of death penalty implicated in 19 exoneration cases in 2019, Death Penalty
Information Center (2020),
deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/dpic-special-reports/dpic-analysis-2019-exoneration-report-imp
licates-use-or-threat-of-death-penalty-in-19-wrongful-convictions.
8
S.R. Gross et al., Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death, 111 Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences 7230–7235 (2014), pnas.org/content/111/20/7230.
7
Executions by state and region since 1976, Death Penalty Information Center,
deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview/number-of-executions-by-state-and-region-since-1976;
Innocence, Death Penalty Information Center (2021), deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence.
6
Id.
5
ACLU, Race and the Death Penalty, aclu.org/other/race-and-death-penalty.
4
Death Penalty Information Center, Executions by Race and Race of Victim,
deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview/executions-by-race-and-race-of-victim; Death Penalty
Information Center, Current U.S. Death Row Population by Race,
deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row/overview/demographics.
3
Gregg v. Georgia, Oyez, oyez.org/cases/1975/74-6257; Kansas v. Marsh, Oyez, oyez.org/cases/2005/04-1170;
Roper v. Simmons, Justia, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/543/551/.