harris county Death Penalty Policy Review

The use of capital punishment as a method of punishing criminals is a practice that should be abandoned. Putting aside the moral and ethical arguments that challenge the ability of the state to execute its citizenry, the multitude of studies that have been done to test the effectiveness of it as a policy have shown that overall, that the punishment is an inequitably expensive burden upon the taxpayers, and even after the protections of Furman have been applied, it is still unfairly and arbitrarily handed out as a sentence. It is because of the increased complexity and political nature of the death sentence that has increased its vulnerability to arbitrary factors weighing into the outcome.

When sentences are created, the courts responsibility is to fit them according to the specifics of the crime as much as possible by weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances, such as pre-meditation, use of a deadly weapon, or mental capacity. Arbitrariness in sentencing is seen when an offender is given a sentence that either does not fit the crime at hand, or the sentence is decided upon non-legal issues. These non-legal issues include but are not limited to the race and gender of the victim and the offender, economic status of the offender, and the jurisdiction in which the offender is tried. Any arbitrarily handed down sentence, especially in a capital trial, would be a breach of a defendants Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. 

Racial bias in sentencing is nothing new to the American justice system. It was one of the main driving forces in the Furman decision, which prompted states to create sentencing guidelines for capital punishment that specifically called to account for arbitrary sentencing. Despite these guidelines, the numbers don’t lie when it comes to racial bias in handing out the death penalty. A study of sentencing trends the first 10 years of capital cases in Texas after Furman was done to analyze the racial trends in the sentencing of death row inmates. More telling even than the over-representation of black and Hispanic offenders in both death row and traditional sentences, the study shows that the greatest discrepancy in the sentencing is based on the race of the victim. According to the study, 12.5% of the victims of death row inmates were black or Hispanic, and 85.4% were white. (Ekland-Olson, 1988) So unless white people are substantially more likely to be victims of murders that are especially heinous, it is not unlikely that race is still very much a factor in the decisions of juries and judges. Racial bias is simply a begrudgingly accepted influence in criminal procedure that affects almost all cases. The standards of judgment we hold for capital punishment must be higher than other cases. The reality of this ever-present arbitrary factor being used to determine capital sentences is unacceptable to these standards. 

The increased complexity of death penalty cases, and the strain it puts on our already clogged judicial system can also lead to failure to properly execute justice. Because of the nature of the punishment, it must be ensured that the attention given to the offender case is absolutely through. Research has shown this is not always possible, and even hampered by outside influence. A study of capital cases in Harris County, Texas, which is the county that includes Houston, was done to compare the rate that offenders who were sentenced to death who had obtained hired legal counsel, against indigent offenders who were given court appointed counsel. (Phillips, 2009). Harris County is unique and important to the death penalty debate for two reasons. One is that it has a large sample size to draw from, with 106 executions from 1976-2009. If it was its own state, the only other state that would have more executions is Texas. Secondly, for its indigent capital offences, Harris County appoints to the offender a member of the local bar, a private attorney, rather than a full-time attorney from a public defender’s office. Phillips advocates the removal of this institution, which he contends as a cause of arbitrary and unfair sentencing. 

The study found that in all cases that hired private counsel for the duration of the case, the offender was not sentenced to death, and those who hired private counsel for a portion of the trial were significantly less likely to be sentenced to death. Phillips pointed to the practice of appointing lawyers to the cases of indigent offenders as the cause of this inconsistency. Appointed lawyers weren’t necessarily any worse at their jobs than hired attorneys, but the study suggests that the priorities and motivations of appointed attorneys worked against the offender they were assigned to. The reasons for this hypothesis varied from fiscal to political. 

For each case, the appointed attorneys are given a flat fee for their services. This creates a twofold problem. Any money that is to be spent for the case for witnesses or experts and the like either must come out of that fee or through the judges, who are not usually eager to shell out money to indigent cases, as this wouldn’t be seen well politically. This results in weaker cases by the defense team. The second issue with the flat fee policy is that any time spent reviewing and preparing for these indigent cases is less time these attorneys have for their private work which they are paid for on an hourly basis. While the appointment method itself is not an inherently bad system for providing indigent defendants with legal counsel, the complexity and importance of capital cases require more attention than can be offered on a part time basis. 

I do not disagree there are monstrous people in this world that may deserve death as a punishment for a crime they have committed. However, the current policies in place to carry this out has shown to not have the means to execute criminals while still ensuring that it was justified, not due to any arbitrary issues, as well as maintaining fiscal efficacy of the system. Capital punishment is a drain of time and money on our justice system that could be used for far greater purposes. Continued use of the death sentences makes us a weaker nation domestically and is a continued cause of criticism from our global partners, weakening our claim as a bastion of morality in the world. 

Works Refrenced:

Ekland-Olson, S. (1988). Structured Discretion, Racial Bias, And the Death Penalty: The First Decade After Furman In Texas. Social Science Quarterly, 853-873. 

Phillips, S. (2009). Criminology Legal Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishments. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 717-755.