Law Commons^™

A Broken System, Part Ii: Why There Is So Much Error In Capital Cases And What Can Be Done About It, James S. Liebman, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Andrew Gelman, Valerie West, Garth Davies, Alexander Kiss

Faculty Scholarship

There is growing awareness that serious, reversible error permeates America’s death penalty system, putting innocent lives at risk, heightening the suffering of victims, leaving killers at large, wasting tax dollars, and failing citizens, the courts and the justice system.

Our June 2000 Report shows how often mistakes occur and how serious it is: 68% of all death verdicts imposed and fully reviewed during the 1973-1995 study period were reversed by courts due to serious errors.

Analyses presented for the first time here reveal that 76% of the reversals at the two appeal stages where data are available for study were …

Look Who's Extrapolating: A Reply To Hoffmann, Valerie West, Jeffery Fagan, James S. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

In late March, a reporter called with news of a pirated copy of Professor Joseph Hoffinann's soon-to-be-published "attack" on our study, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995. Did we care to comment? Obtaining our own copy revealed that Professor Hoffmann's fusillade missed its mark (he misstates what we did) and boomeranged (his mischaracterizations of our analysis accurately describe his own). We do care to comment, and Hoffmann and the Indiana Law Journal have graciously let us do so.

Hoffmann's main claim is that we "extrapolated" the 68% rate of reversible error we reported for capital verdicts …