Geographic Unfairness

							Geographic Unfairness:
Whether or not a person receives the death penalty depends heavily on where the
crime was committed.

When the Supreme Court temporarily halted the death penalty in 1972 (Furman v. Georgia),
Justice Potter Stewart stated, "These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that
being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual…I simply conclude that the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit
this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed." Although the death penalty
was reinstated in 1976, the criminal justice system today is still arbitrary and random in nature, as
demonstrated by geographic disparities in how the death penalty is applied.

Regional Disparities
There are great disparities between regions in the United States, meaning that those who commit
crimes in certain regions are punished much more heavily than in others. The south accounts for
more than 80 percent of executions, while the northeast is responsible for less than 1 percent of
executions. (The Death Penalty Information Center, “Understanding Capital Punishment: A
Guide through the Death Penalty Debate.”)


                                  Executions by Region: 1976-2003
                            90%
                                    81.8%
 Percentage of Executions




                            60%




                            30%

                                                      10.8%
                                             7.1%
                                                                0.4%
                            0%
                                    South    West    Midwest   Northeast
                                                Region
(Source: The Death Penalty Information Center, “Understanding Capital Punishment: A Guide through the
Death Penalty Debate.” Data through March 1, 2003.)
Moreover, the number of executions per region is widely disproportional to the murder rates in
these regions:


                            2001 Murder Rates per 100,000
                                     Population
                        8
                              6.7
  Murders per 100,000




                        6              5.5            5.3
      Population




                                                              4.2
                        4


                        2


                        0
                             South    West       Midwest    Northeast
                                             Region
(Source: The Death Penalty Information Center, “Understanding Capital Punishment: A Guide through the
Death Penalty Debate.”)

Disparities between States
However, death penalty policy is not neatly divided along regional lines - neighboring states in
the same region can have different practices. For example, Iowa does not practice the death
penalty while Missouri does. Massachusetts does not practice the death penalty, but Connecticut
does. The same can be said for Wisconsin (no) and Illinois (yes, but a moratorium on executions
has been in place since 2000), and West Virginia (no) and Virginia (yes – with a badge of honor)
respectively. This creates an unfair system wherein the simple act of crossing state lines can be
the difference between life and death. This is in no way an argument for practicing the death
penalty in all states: there are also disparities within states, so expanding the death penalty to
more states would only increase the problem.

Disparities within States
Numerous studies have illustrated that, even within states, the death penalty is applied
disproportionately to corresponding murder rates. For example, about 25% of Ohio’s death row
inmates come from Hamilton County, even though only 9% of the state’s murders occur there.
(R. Willing and G. Fields, Geography of the Death Penalty, USA Today, Dec. 20, 1999). In
Indiana, a 2001 investigation by seven state newspapers found that two Indiana counties have
produced almost as many death sentences as all of the other Indiana counties combined. (South
Bend Tribune, Oct. 21, 2001). In New York, although upstate counties experience 19% of the
state’s homicides, they nonetheless account for 61% of all capital prosecutions. Three counties
(out of 62 in the state) accounted for over one-third of all cases in which a death notice was filed.
(Capital Punishment in New York State: Statistics from Six Years of Representation, Report from
the Capital Defender Office, Sept. 2001, data through June 30, 2001). Because the prosecutor
decides whether to pursue the death penalty and because of the exorbitant price of capital
punishment, these disparities between counties are often the result of the views of individual
prosecutors as well as the county’s financial resources. (See Costs fact sheet.)
Although one would expect federal law to be applied evenly throughout the country, a Justice
Department investigation into the use of the federal death penalty found significant geographic
disparities in prosecutions: From 1995-2000, 42% of federal death penalty cases submitted to the
Attorney General for review came from just 5 of the 94 federal districts. (The Death Penalty
Information Center, “Understanding Capital Punishment: A Guide through the Death Penalty
Debate.”)

The U.S. Supreme Court has said that if the death penalty is applied arbitrarily, it should not be
applied at all, and struck it down for that very reason in 1972. However, recent studies have
exposed a system that has not much improved since 1972, in that death sentences are still applied
unevenly along geographic lines.