POLI203 QUIZZES

What is the sharp rise in executions in the 1900s associated with?

A decline in lynchings

What reason was cited by the most justices in Furman v Georgia (1972) when the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional?

capricious and arbitrary

What did Gregg v. Georgia (1976) hold

capital punishment is constitutional with safeguards

what procedural innovation did Gregg require

bifurcated trials

“felony-murder” refers to

murders that are committed during a felony, rendering all participants in the felony guilty of murder even if they did not personally kill

What makes a homicide aggravated?

multiple victims, poison, stabbing, strangling, felony murder victim under 12 or over 64

Which NC county has the highest total number of death sentences since 1972

Robeson

What is one thing that may result in a reduced sentence (LWOP)

commutation

What percentage of death sentences are overturned on appeal?

70 percent

What does the Marshall Hypothesis say?

If the public knew how the death penalty was actually implemented, they would not support it

what characteristics have the strongest association with the likelihood of execution?

victim race and gender

What is true about female defendants in terms of death sentences

they receive death sentences at a lower rate than men and are also executed at a lower rate

In what city are capital crimes most likely to result in execution?

Houston

What did David Baldus’ study find?

Legally irrelevant factors affect the odds of being sentenced to death, and there is intentional racial discrimination in death penalty sentences

What amount od death-eligible homicides actually result in a death sentence

a very small percentage

What did Donohue’s study of Connecticut find about egregiousness and death sentences

Non-death cases were often more egregious than death cases

What do empirical studies show about the percentage of murders that are death-eligible

in most death penalty states, a majority of murders are death-eligible

why do many states fail to narrow death-eligibility meaningfully?

some aggravators or eligibility factors are broad or subjective

What does the law of parties outline?

any participant in a felony is equally responsible for the outcomes, even if they do not kill the victim

What role was proportionality review supposed to play?

Ensuring death was reserved for the worst offenders

What county in the US has carried out the most executions since 1972?

Harris County, Texas

What is the relationship between race, geography, and execution rates?

Suburban countries have higher execution rates despite fewer homicides and are disproportionately white compared to central cities

What explains the extreme geographic variation in the use of the death penalty in the U.S.?

Electoral incentives shape the discretionary decisions of local prosecutors

why do executions across jurisdictions follow a power-law (fat-tailed) distribution instead of a normal bell-curve one?

executions are generated by a self-reinforcing process where prior executions increase the likelihood of future ones

What is the relationship between homicide levels and executions?

there is little to no statistical relationship between homicide and execution rates

Around how many homicides occurred annually in NC in recent years?

500

Chris Ochoa was…

threatened with capital prosecution and confessed to the crime

how is commutation used in the modern U.S. death penalty system?

its a rare form of executive clemency that reduced a death sentence to life while leaving the conviction intact

What is true about the cost of maintaining the death penalty?

it costs more to maintain it than to have LWOP as the most severe punishment

What are common reasons for reversal of a death sentence?

prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, judicial error

around what percentage of finalized dispositions result in an execution nationwide?

25 percent

what is the most common outcome for defendants whose death sentences are reviewed and finalized in the modern era of capital punishment?

overturning of the death sentence and replacement with a lesser punishment

what pattern exists in death-sentence reversal rates after the early years of the modern death penalty era?

reversal rates stabilized at roughly 60 percent after the early 1980s

what are some forms of reversal?

clemency, conviction overturned, penalty overturned

What is true about Chris Ochoa being read his miranda rights?

the arresting officers did not read Chris Ochoa his Miranda rights immediately as standard procedure outlines

around how many homicides occur in the U.S. each year?

15,000

which state has sentenced the fewest people to death?

Oklahoma

what jurisdiction has the highest rates of death sentencing per 100 homicides?

Delaware

What county has the highest number of death sentences in the modern era?

Los Angeles County, LA

around how many people live in the U.S. as of 2025?

300 million

what is the most common outcome of a death sentence in the period since 1972?

overturning of the death sentence and replacement with a lesser punishment

what happened when Chris Turner was released from federal prison?

he was released in Modesto, CA and given a bus voucher for the ride back to his hometown in Washington

Chris Turner was…

granted parole at his first eligibility and served the remaining part of his sentence under conditions of parole

what form of reversal results i nthe defendants guilty verdict being sustained, but their dealth sentence is eliminated?

penalty overturned

what is a key feature of a pardon of innocence in some states?

it formally recognizes that the individual is not only not guilty, but they are actually innocent and may be eligible for compensation

what proportion of wrongful conviction cases do not involve a crime

1/4

What were Lackey v. Texas and Jones v. Chappell concerned with?

how long it can take to carry out an execution

what is the average delay between crime and death sentence?

18 months

what group have executions in PA and CA been reserved almost exclusively for?

volunteers

what are some common reasons for exoneration?

ineffective legal defense, perjury, false accusation, false/misleading forensic evidence (NOT jury misconduct)

what did the restoring proper justice act of 2012 in NC alter about the execution process?

it eliminated a doctor’s presence during the execution, saying that anyone with EMT will suffice

what what the first state to execute someone using electrocution?

New York

in the 3-drug cocktail, the paralytic agent is designed to do what?

stop all muscle movement

what did Baze v. Rees (2008) decide?

lethal injection was upheld as a legal form of capital punishment

what is a death warrant?

an order from an individual that sets the date of execution for any inmate who exhausted all direct appeals following their death sentence

what method of execution has the highest chance of being botched?

lethal injection

What law sets a 2-year limit on all death row appeals?

Iryna’s Law

What percent of death warrants between 2016 and 2026 were not carried out?

59 percent

what evidence did the Detroit police suppress or manufacture to secure Ken Nixon’s 2005 conviction?

a memo admitting a 13-year-old witness’s statement was obviously coached and a prosecutors memo highlighting a desperate need for more evidence.

what are some reasons a stay might be granted after an execution date has been set

new evidence is discovered, a new legal appeak or motion is filed, or if there are concerns about constitutionality of execution method

what court ruling requires that an inmate must be mentally competent to understand the reason for their execution?

Ford v. Wainwright

What are some mental illnesses that are more common among executed inmates than in the general population?

antisocial, schizo, depression

around what percentage of those who are executed were military veterans?

10 percent

what is true about death-row inmates with mental illnesses or intellectual disabilities?

the threshold for low IQ under Atkins is 70, Atkins v. Virginia decided that executing people with intellectual disabilities is unconstitutional, and the current data about number of MI would likely be under-estimated

what court ruling holds that states may not forcibly medicate soley to render them competent for execution?

Sell v. U.S.

what is true about public opinion on the death penalty?

public support is generally low for those who don’t directly cause the victim’s death, after mid 1990s support for death penalty has declined, and there is a strong correlation between public opinion and annual number of death sentences

between 1920 and 1970, what method of execution was most common?

electric chair

what is the opinion paradox regarding the death penalty?

high support in public opinion but low levels of actual use

how did the share of homicides that lead to a death sentence in NC change from 1990s to the 2010s and 2020s?

it dropped very dramatically

what are variables public opinion surveys have shown to be statistically associated with a higher likelihood of supporting the death penalty?

political affiliation (republican), race (white), and gender (male)

what is considered a saving rather than an expense for death penalty costs?

NOT mandated automatic appeals, implementation of a two-stage trial, or jury selection process for a capital case

Who was Ehrlich?

the scholar whose 1975 article suggested that each execution saves eight lives, an argument that impacted the debate before the Gregg decision

according to Ehrlich, price theory predicts that if the price of murder increases, the demand for it…

decreases

what happens if someone takes an Alford plea?

they are legally guilty

what is the main reason reforms for lowering costs of DP (like reducing appeals) are often opposed?

they increase the risk of executing innocent people

Lynden Harris has…

taught creative writing to death row prisoners

Lynden Harris NOT true

been able to pay incarcerated participants, had a first project about DP that was the story from the perspective of the families of DR inmates, performances poorly attended due to public indifference

Lynden Harris has led and participated in…

Count, Right here right now, good boy

what is true about the costs of the DP in diff states?

CA has 4 billion cost over 31 years, states with high execution rates have relatively lower costs per execution, NJ has a total cost od 253 million without a single execution from 1982 to 2005

when plea bargaining is likely to happen, do lawyers on both sides stop preparing for capital trial to decrease pretrial costs?

no

why should we be suspicious about the deterrence effect?

it is unlikely that murderers rationally calculate the costs/benefits of the crime before committing it

what is the roper extension argument?

reasoning should be extended to prohibit the death penalty for other groups

what aspect of the identification procedure raises the strongest concern about potential bias in the victim’s identification of Marvin Anderson

Mr. Anderson was the only person in the lineup whose photo had been shown previously

what happened with Marvin Anderson’s case?

he was originally released on parole and then exonerated a few years after his release

what states have Governor moratoria?

Oregon, Pennsylvania, Ohio

which court decision ruled it is okay to execute 16-17 year olds?

Stanford v. Kentucky

what is the percentage decline of states that sentenced a person to death in a given year between 2025 and peak use of DP in 1998?

from around 35-40 percent to 15 percent

what can we observe about the number of death sentences in DP trends?

they remained relatively high through the 1990s peaking around late 1990s and then declined

what year was the decision made that DP cannot be used on people with intellectual disabilities (IQ < 70)

2002

what US Supreme Court case dealt with evolving standards of decency

Trop v. Dulles

what are some reasons the modern DP does not meet the Gregg test?

arbitrary, race-of-victim bias, and non-narrow

what is the number of homicides per 1M population in recent years in NC

30

what is the number of people currently on death row in NC

122

How many of the 11 states that executions took place in in 2025 had a democratic governor

1

what happens to most death warrants signed by the governor

they are later cancelled

was isaac knappers conviction eventually overturned after another person confessed to the murder in 1991?

no

which correctional facility was isaac knapper sent to serve his life sentence

Louisiana state penitentiary (angola prison)

what is the main argument of McCleskey v. Kemp: Field Notes

although legal reforms aimed to address arbitrariness, significant racial disparities persisted and the court declined to act on this evidence in McCleskey v. Kemp

how did Anthony G. Amsterdam and Marvin Wolfgang help

they contributed legal strategy and empirical research on capital sentencing

what was the purpose of LDF’s agreement with Prof. David Baldus

to conduct an independent empirical study regardless of the outcome