From [DPIC] An analysis by the Death Penalty Information Center has discovered rampant prosecutorial misconduct in death penalty prosecutions. DPIC’s ongoing review of death sentences imposed and overturned after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down existing death penalty statutes in 1972 has identified more than 550 prosecutorial misconduct reversals and exonerations in capital cases (click to enlarge image). That amounts to more than 5.6% of all death sentences imposed in the United States in the past half-century. 

“The data on wrongful convictions has long shown that prosecutorial misconduct is a significant source of injustice in the criminal legal system,” DPIC executive director Robert Dunham said. “But this research documents that what some judges have described as an ‘epidemic’ of misconduct is even more pervasive than we had imagined.”

These cases, Dunham cautioned, provide only a glimpse into the extent misconduct infects death penalty prosecutions. The list does not include the even more numerous cases in which courts found that prosecutors had committed misconduct but excused it on grounds of supposed immateriality or harmless error. It also does not include misconduct reversals in cases in which capital charges had been pursued but defendants were convicted of lesser charges or sentenced to life or less.

DPIC reviewed existing studies of prosecutorial misconduct, DPIC’s Exoneration Database, case documents from research for DPIC’s Death Penalty Census, and thousands of appellate opinions to identify capital cases that have been reversed for prosecutorial misconduct or resulted in a misconduct exoneration. This review demonstrated the widespread nature of the problem, uncovering misconduct reversals and exonerations in 228 counties, 32 states, and in federal capital prosecutions.