A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases and What Can Be Done About Them
The "Broken System" studies were conducted by James S. Liebman, the Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law at the Columbia University School of Law, and Jeffrey Fagan, Professor at the Columbia Law School & Joseph Mailman School of Public Health.
Background: In 1991 the Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary asked Professor James Liebman of the Columbia University School of Law to calculate the frequency of relief in habeas corpus cases. In late 1995, the study was expanded from a single count of cases and their outcomes to a search for information that might help explain why relief is granted in so many capital cases.
No such undertaking had ever before been attempted.
The results are so startling, that The Justice Project is trying to make them as widely available as possible.
It is important to note that Professor Liebman's work was begun nearly a decade before the current national debate on the death penalty, and his results would have appeared this spring, no matter what the results or public opinion of our capital punishment system.
| These reports and attachments are the sole product of the authors, as part of a Columbia University and Columbia Law School based research project. The Justice Project, which is making these reports available as a public service, had no role in producing the reports and attachments, or contributing to their contents. |
