Forty-three years after the Supreme Court reversed course and reinstated the death penalty, reliable data on the individuals sent to death row is maddeningly difficult to obtain. The Intercept set out to compile a comprehensive dataset on everyone sentenced to die in active death penalty jurisdictions since 1976. Our findings show that capital punishment remains as “arbitrary and capricious” as ever.
The Supreme Court kick-started the death penalty in 1976, reassuring the public that capital punishment would now pass constitutional muster. Our numbers show that wasn’t true.
Abolition of the death penalty has increasingly become a bipartisan issue, with conservative lawmakers focused on its cost, while others decry the ongoing victimization of families and the risk of executing innocent people.
Prosecutors wield enormous discretion in the U.S. system — unless they decide that capital punishment is unjust. Aramis Ayala’s vision put her on a collision course with Florida’s governor, legislature, and Supreme Court.
The U.S. has executed just 20 percent of the people sentenced to die. Forty-three percent are no longer on death row, and 32 percent of capital cases were so flawed that they required court intervention.