Study: Texas Not No. 1 in Death Penalty

[question everything]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=8&u=/ap/20040214/ap_on_re_us/death_penalty_study_1

DALLAS - Despite its reputation as the nation's death penalty leader, Texas is less likely than some other states to sentence convicted murders to death, according to a new study.

It is, however, more likely than other states to carry out a death sentence once it is imposed, according to the study, sponsored by the Cornell Law School Death Penalty Project, which provides legal services to death-row inmates.

[RedSock]

1. damn

* leaves and the state goes all to hell.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

2. Dare I ask what is the #1 state?

I hope we didn't make that list... yet somehow, I fear that NC is somewhere up on top after this year....

[MidwestTransplant]

5. My guess is Varginia

[pnorman]

7. Nevada and Oklahoma are the top two

Study: Texas Not No. 1 in Death Penalty
Sat Feb 14, 9:56 AM ET

DALLAS - Despite its reputation as the nation's death penalty leader, Texas is less likely than some other states to sentence convicted murders to death, according to a new study.

It is, however, more likely than other states to carry out a death sentence once it is imposed, according to the study, sponsored by the Cornell Law School Death Penalty Project, which provides legal services to death-row inmates.

Texas actually trails the national average when it comes to the percentage of people convicted of murder who are sentenced to death, says the study, published in the new Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.

As a percentage of murders, Nevada and Oklahoma impose the most death sentences, at 6 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively. The national average is 2.5 percent.
>
>
Texas had about 38,000 murders from 1976-1998 that resulted in the arrest of people older than 16, according to the FBI (news - web sites) records. California was the only state that had more, at 50,000. During that same period, Texas used the death sentence 776 times.

As of this past week, Texas had executed 319 people since 1976. By contrast, only 10 people have been executed in California, where 795 people were sentenced to death from 1976 through 2002.

"It tells you there are absolutely massive post-sentencing differences," Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor at Cornell and an author of the study, told The New York Times.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=8&u=/ap/20040214/ap_on_re_us/death_penalty_study_1

pnorman
STAND UP, KEEP FIGHTING http://shows.implex.tv/wellstone/

[Bill McBlueState]

3. California?

I know CA has an *enormous* death row, but they rarely execute anyone. Still, Texas has nothing to be proud of.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. If we were as quick to put the condemned to death as Texas

If we Californians were as quick to put the condemned to death as Texas, we wouldn't have a tremendous death row.

Off the cuff, I'd guess that we have about one or two executions a year. I'll let somebody else check the stats.

[NNadir]

4. Well they kill more in absolute numbers.

It seems they had 38,000 murders in the two + decades of the study. It goes to show ya about that great "deterence" effect of capital punishment.