Today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram publishes the editorial, "Study: 7 of top 10 counties with most executions are in Texas."
Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, Texas has had the distinction of being what some call “the capital of capital punishment.”
With more than 500 executions, the Lone Star State is far out in front of all others when it comes to putting people to death.
But a new study released Wednesday by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., notes even more revealing factors — indeed disparities —about this state’s application of the death penalty. It examines executions, death row populations and capital sentences by county.
The report, “The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All,” says that just 2 percent of U.S. counties have been responsible for the majority of executions, most of the population on death row and a majority of recent death sentences.
Of the top 10 counties within that 2 percent that have produced the most executions in the country, seven are in Texas, with Harris and Dallas counties ranked Nos. 1 and 2, Tarrant No. 4 and Bexar No. 5. Those four counties, while among the most populous, account for almost half of the executions in a state with 254 counties.
“Death sentences depend more on the location of the county line than on the severity of the crime,” the report said, while also noting that “Texas alone has accounted for 38 percent of the nation’s executions.”
There is also continuing news coverage. AFP posts, "Most US executions done in just 2% of counties: study."
More than half of US executions take place in just two percent of counties in the United States, a new study found Thursday.The Death Penalty Information Center also said that inmates in a handful of California, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania counties account for the bulk of death row inmates.
Nationwide, just two percent of counties are responsible for 56 percent of offenders living on death row, even though 85 percent of US counties have not executed a single person in more than 45 years.
In all, 62 of 3,143 counties in the United States have executed 685 death row inmates -- 52 percent of the 1,320 total across the country -- since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Among the counties that execute the most were seven in Texas, two in neighboring Oklahoma and one in Missouri.
Bob Egelko writes, "Death penalty study: 25% of cases from 10 counties," for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Out of more than 3,100 convicted murderers on death rows nationwide, over a quarter have come from just 10 counties, which include Alameda County and four others in California, a new report says.
While the annual number of death sentences in the United States is lower than it has been in about four decades, a large proportion of condemned prisoners come from a relatively small number of counties "where seeking death sentences has been a high priority," said the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.
"Half of all death penalties in U.S. occur in only two percent of all counties," at Catholic Online.
The study also showed that death sentences are at their lowest level in four decades. Furthermore, 85 percent of all counties have not had a single person executed in more than 45 years.
The study did find that criminal offenders in the states of California, Texas, Oklahoma and Florida have a disproportionate chance of ending up on death row. Even then only a small number of counties remain responsible for the wide majority of death penalty sentences in the U.S.
Only 62 of the 3,143 counties in the U.S. were responsible for 52 percent of all death row inmates executed since 1976.
"People here believe in the death penalty but not in a death penalty that's unfair," Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center and the study's author says. "And that's the one that exists in practice."
The Southern states account for more than 80 percent of executions, with Texas leading at 38 percent. Even then, great internal disparities exist in these states.
The DPIC report is, "THE 2% DEATH PENALTY: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All." You can find the full report, executive summary, and news release at the links.
Earlier coverage of the report begins at the link.
Related posts are in the geographic disparity and report category indexes.
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