
Contents
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27.1 Introduction 27.1 Introduction
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27.2 The Court, the Constitution, and the Rationalization of the Capital Charging and Sentencing Process 27.2 The Court, the Constitution, and the Rationalization of the Capital Charging and Sentencing Process
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27.3 Prevalence and Sources of Capital Error 27.3 Prevalence and Sources of Capital Error
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27.4 Surveying the Reform Landscape 27.4 Surveying the Reform Landscape
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27.4.1 External Reforms 27.4.1 External Reforms
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27.4.2 Internal Reforms 27.4.2 Internal Reforms
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27.5 A “Frugal” Proposition 27.5 A “Frugal” Proposition
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27.5.1 Data Collection 27.5.1 Data Collection
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27.5.2 Review Committee Composition 27.5.2 Review Committee Composition
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27.5.3 Substantive Case Review 27.5.3 Substantive Case Review
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27.5.4 Recommendations and Ramifications 27.5.4 Recommendations and Ramifications
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27.6 Conclusion 27.6 Conclusion
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Notes Notes
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References References
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27 Shrinking the Accountability Deficit in Capital Charging
Get accessSherod Thaxton is Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. He also holds courtesy appointments in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of Sociology.
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Published:14 April 2021
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Abstract
The price of capital trials, appeals, and clemency proceedings have skyrocketed since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its moratorium on the death penalty, but this has not translated to more reliable case outcomes—the rate of serious reversible error and wrongful convictions has steadily increased during the same time period. The overly aggressive use of the death penalty by prosecutors has not only been convincingly linked to these high reversal rates, but may also increase crime, decrease the likelihood of arrests for homicides, and lead to heightened risks of miscarriages of justice for non‐capital defendants. It follows that limiting hawkish prosecutorial decision‐making in potentially capital cases may be particularly effective in reducing the prevalence of error and reducing unnecessary expense. Curbing the virtually unfettered discretion of prosecutors is not a new idea, but extant proposals tend to suffer from shortcomings that are likely to render them impractical or ineffective. Any viable legal intervention must increase prosecutorial accountability for inadequate charge‐screening in capital cases while still permitting prosecutors to retain discretion in seeking the death penalty. This essay describes a reform that consists of two primary components: (1) an advisory (i.e., non‐binding) opinion from a reviewing authority assessing the appropriateness of a prosecutor’s decision to seek the death penalty in a case based on the totality of evidence, and (2) financial and administrative cost-shifting mechanisms capable of disincentivizing prosecutorial overreaching in capital charging.
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