Despite public controversy over the length of
death penalty appeals, little empirical work has been done on the time
allocated to the capital appeals process. The purpose of this study
was to perform a multistate empirical analysis of the capital appeals
process.
This study focused on the time taken to process
direct appeals of capital cases in 14 states. These direct appeals are
the first stage in the capital appeals process. The researchers
included decisions from 14 states that they believed to be
representative of the 37 states that have enforceable death penalty
laws. For each of the 14 states included in the study, the researchers
examined every capital case decided on direct appeal by the courts of
last resort between the dates January 1, 1992, and December 31,
2002.
The researchers developed a case database by examining a variety
of sources. First, they turned to the clerk's office of each state
court of last resort. Practically all of the offices had electronic
docket control systems that identified capital appeals. Second, to
confirm completeness, the researchers searched the online legal
databases, Westlaw and Lexis, for all years of the study. In addition,
for cases decided through 1995, they reviewed the data on direct
appeal produced by Liebman, et al. (2002). Once all the cases were
identified, the clerks' offices provided, either electronically or
though docket sheets, the dates for the completion of various steps in
each appeal. Trial court sentencing dates for each case were obtained
from the state supreme court clerks' offices, the trial court clerks'
offices, appellate briefs, or through public information available
over the World Wide Web.
Thus, for each of the 1,676 cases in the multistate database, the
research team collected time consumption data for each of the
following five phases of the direct appeal process:
- the postsentence stage,
- the preparation stage,
- the argument stage,
- the decision stage, and
- the supreme court stage.
The sample selected to represent the universe consists
of 1,676 cases. The researchers included in the study decisions from
14 states that they believed to be representative of the 37 states
that have enforceable death penalty laws. For state selection, the
research team relied initially on the work of Lofquist (2002).
Lofquist classified states in terms of their application of
the death penalty as measured by three criteria: the number of death
sentences, the number of reversals, and the number of executions. He
then established six categories of states, which he called
Abolitionist, Inactive, Active, Symbolic, Inefficient, and
Aggressive.
The researchers included in the study states from each of
Lofquist's categories except the Abolitionist and the Inactive. The
12 Abolitionist states (13, if one includes New York) were excluded
for the reason that they did not provide for capital punishment. The
researchers also rejected the six Inactive states because the
researchers concluded that they did not impose enough death sentences
to permit fruitful study. The following states were chosen:
- Three Active states - Kentucky, New Jersey, and Washington
- Three Symbolic states - Nevada, Ohio, and Tennessee
- Four Inefficient states - Arizona, Georgia, Florida, and North
Carolina
- Four Aggressive states - Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, and
Virginia
All capital cases resolved on direct appeal by the court
of last resort (COLR) in 14 states between January 1, 1992, and
December 31, 2002. The 14 states are: Arizona, Florida, Georgia,
Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
individual
Data were obtained from the following sources:
- The clerk's office of each state court of last resort
- Online legal databases (Westlaw and Nexis)
- Data on direct appeal produced by Liebman, et al. (2002)
- The state supreme court clerks' offices
- The trial court clerks' offices
- Appelate briefs
- World Wide Web
administrative records data
Variables include state, case characteristics,
court opinion variables, dates, and time consumption variables. Case
characteristics include case number, case title, case citation
information (volume of reporter in which decision of state court of
last resort reported, reporter in which decision of state court of
last resort reported, and page number of reporter on which decision
begins), intermediate appellate court (IAC) review, rule/statute
directed to reduce processing time of capital appeals, scope of
review, state court of last resort decision to affirm or reverse trial
court decision, and United States Supreme Court decision. Court
opinion variables include number of concurring opinions, number of
dissenting opinions, page length of majority opinion, and page length
of all opinions. Date variables include capital sentencing date,
notice of appeal filing date, last brief filing date, oral argument
date, state court of last resort decision date (both excluding
proportionality decision date for New Jersey cases and using
proportionality decision date for New Jersey cases), and United States
Supreme Court decision date. Time consumption variables include
sentence date to state court of last resort decision date, state court
of last resort decision date to United States Supreme Court decision
date, sentence date to United States Supreme Court decision date,
sentence date to notice of appeal filing date, sentence date to last
brief filing date, notice of appeal date to last brief filing date,
last brief filing date to oral argument date, oral argument date to
state court of last resort decision date, notice of appeal date to
state court of last resort decision date, and notice of appeal date to
state court of last resort decision date.
None.