A new report from Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project has highlighted the role of individual lawyers’ personalities in the prevalence of death sentences in the United States, reporting that the nation’s five ‘deadliest’ prosecutors have overseen more than 5 per cent of all death sentences handed down since 1976. Titled ‘America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors: How Overzealous Personalities Drive the Death Penalty’, the report examines the records of a group of prosecutors who are responsible for a ‘vastly disproportionate’ number of modern executions. With a combined total of 440 death sentences, they are: Joe Freeman Britt of North Carolina, with 38 sentences in 14 years; Robert Macy of Oklahoma, with 54 sentences in 21 years; Donald Meyers of South Carolina, with 39 sentences in 38 years; Lynne Abraham of Philadelphia, with 108 sentences in 19 years; and Johnny Holmes of Texas, who prosecuted a staggering 201 death sentences over 21 years.

Rampant misconduct

The chilling enthusiasm for capital punishment among the prosecutors, four of which are no longer in office, has been documented by Harvard’s researchers. One, Mr Meyers, used an electric chair paperweight in his office, while another, Mr Macy, decorated his with a Tombstone poster that read ‘Justice is Coming’. Equally troubling is the high prevalence of misconduct allegations against the five lawyers. Mr Macy, for example, was accused of misconduct in all but three of the death sentences he oversaw, with prosecutorial misconduct eventually found evident in 33.3 per cent of his death penalty cases. Nearly half of all Mr Macy’s death sentences were later overturned by courts, with ‘extreme’ misconduct found in 18 cases. Misidentifying and withholding evidence, pushing a defense attorney in court and reaching for his gun when six defendants received acquittals are all among Mr Macy’s recorded transgressions.

Deadly personalities

In a phenomenon it describes as ‘personality-driven capital punishment’, the report warns that a small handful of county prosecutors are still accounting for a disproportionate number of death sentences in the US. Three – Bernie de la Rionda of Florida, Jeanette Gallagher of Arizona, and Paul Ebert of Virginia – are on track to join the ranks of the nation’s ‘deadliest’ prosecutors if their zeal for securing death sentences continues to go unchecked, it warns.

Sources: Harvard University; The Guardian