Hi there, In “The Last 12 Weeks,” one of the more surprising facts about David Wood’s case is just how long he’d been on death row by the time we began following his lawyers: more than 30 years. I found myself wondering how common that is, but this kind of question can be hard to answer. As my colleagues at The Marshall Project have shown, data on crime and incarceration is notoriously sketchy. (We’re always looking with envy at more data-rich beats like sports and finance.) But while making the show, we did find a wonk’s gold mine: a list of every death sentence in the U.S. since the 1970s, courtesy of the University of North Carolina professor Frank Baumgartner and the Death Penalty Information Center. I looked at it with my Marshall Project colleague Jill Castellano and the New York Times data reporter Steven Rich for a new story and video. It turns out that for all the wild and very specific turns in Wood’s case — there is no data on Whataburger disclosures! — the extended period of time he has spent on death row is common, and is a reflection of just how broken the system remains. Let’s look at the data from 1993, when Wood received his death sentence. He was one of 288 people to get the death penalty that year. But as of this year, I was surprised to learn that only a quarter of them have been executed. If you do a “where are they now” for the 1993 cohort, you’ll see that a majority are still alive. About a quarter are still on death row like Wood. A handful were exonerated, meaning judges were persuaded that they were innocent and they were released from prison. In a few cases, a governor intervened to commute someone’s sentence, usually to a lesser punishment. More commonly, though, nearly a third of cases were thrown out by a court — often because of constitutional violations like prosecutorial misconduct — leading to a non-death prison sentence instead. Finally, about one in 10 died of causes other than execution.
These numbers broadly reflect the bigger picture of the more than 9,000 death sentences that have been handed down across the U.S. since 1972, a stretch typically called the “modern era” of the death penalty. Death sentences have shown a sharp decline over the last 30 years, and yet the number of people on death row has dropped only a little, which suggests how many people simply sit there for years on end, like Wood.
Both sides of the death penalty debate will agree that the system is broken. Supporters will say the problem is liberal courts and spin doctor defense lawyers, and the solution is faster appeal deadlines. But we know from past efforts that the cure might be worse than the disease. After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, President Bill Clinton signed a major law to speed up executions. Yet, according to Professor Baumgartner, that effort had no discernible effect on the numbers — even as it created new risks of sending innocent people to execution. The Trump administration is actually trying to speed up executions even more right now, by letting some states set tighter deadlines for appeals, and defense lawyers warn this would further increase miscarriages of justice. I think the problem is the death penalty itself. For decades now, judges and lawmakers have tried to devise a system that renders justice quickly and fairly. But every time we try to make it quicker, it seems to become less fair. Try to make it more fair, and you slow it down, creating a grueling process for everyone involved, including victims’ family members like Marcia Fulton, whom we feature in “The Last 12 Weeks.” Here’s another way to say it: If Wood had been sentenced to life in prison, he probably would not have gotten such good lawyers. The urgency and finality of an execution means there are more resources for death row prisoners, like the federal defender’s office we feature in the podcast. Without these lawyers, Wood’s innocence claims might never have been developed. But also: Fulton would have been able to move on with her life, rather than spend all this time waiting for Wood to be executed and worrying that he won’t be. There are thousands of victims’ family members whose desire for closure is pitted against society’s desire to have a fair system that doesn’t execute innocent people. Each execution date forces defense lawyers and prosecutors to scramble, and people like Marcia Fulton and David Wood ride the emotional roller coaster once again. Sign up here to get the “Serial” newsletter in your inbox. Follow “Serial” on Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, Facebook and X. Serial Productions makes narrative podcasts whose quality and innovation transformed the medium. Learn more. Read more from our partners at The Marshall Project and sign up for their newsletters. You can also follow The Marshall Project on Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky and Facebook.
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