The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "death penalty" ...
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Grim Reapers
Maricopa County, Arizona, has faced economic hurdles in paying for representation of indigent defendants charged with capital crimes. In recent years, the county supplanted other jurisdictions as the unofficial “death penalty capital” of the United States. “Grim Reaper” describes how a prominent capital criminal-defense attorney committed serious ethical and potentially criminal violations over a period of five years, during which time he collected more than $2.4 million from the county, including payment for work that he never had performed. in the wake of publication, law enforcement initiated a still-ongoing criminal investigation (as did the State Bar of Arizona), and the county's presiding judge announced sweeping and immediate changes in how criminal-defense attorneys representing indigent clients would be vetted, selected and paid.
Tags: Crimes; charges; criminal justice system; capital crimes
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Finger prints
For almost a century, fingerprint evidence has been a revered cornerstone of the American criminal justice system. But that may soon change. Last fall, in a Baltimore murder case, a judge ruled that fingerprint analysis is not reliable, which shocked lawyers across the country and could possibly put thousands of criminal investigations in jeopardy. CBS News spent months researching the use of fingerprints in murder trials as well as assessing the future of fingerprint evidence.
Tags: fingerprint evidence; Brandon Mayfield; court cases; criminal investigations; attorney; forensic evidence; death penalty
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Unequal Justice
An investigation into Texas's justice system revealed that at least 120 killers were put on probation instead of required to spend time in prison. Texas employs a legal system which "scholars nationwide diagnosed as broken," in which juries made sentencing decisions based "as much on likes and dislikes as on facts." Also, judges repeatedly gave freed killers a second chance on probation violations because "they viewed probation as a chance for reform, not punishment."
Tags: legal system; courts; justice; death penalty; probation; murderers; killers; probation violations; juries; sentencing
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Who Killed Her Daughter?
"The package of stories focused on the unsolved slaying of four young women within central Virginia that occurred within a seven-month span in 1996."
Tags: forensics; murder; serial killer; Richard Marc Evonitz; slaying; law enforcement; FBI lab; Darrell Rice; innocent; death penalty
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Race to Execution
"Race to Execution reveals how, beyond DNA and the issue of innocence, the shameful open secret of America's capital punishment system is a matter of race." The race of the victim's and the accused "influence the legal process" from crime scene investigation, media portrayal, to jury selection and sentencing.
Tags: race; death penalty; execution; investigation; jury; suspects; criminal justice; capital punishment
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A Matter of Life or Death
Examining "how crimes eligible for the death penalty were prosecuted in Georgia over a 10-year period," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that sentence varied by circuit court.
Tags: Georgia; murder; death penalty; attorneys; armed-robbery murder; death sentence; life sentence; Furman v. Georgia; FOIA
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Life and Death
This analysis of Ohio's capital punishment system looked at 1900 crimes that were potentially capital crimes. It found that offenders who killed whites were twice as likely to be sentenced to death as those who killed blacks; that more than half of capital cases ended with plea bargains; and that the possibility of a death sentence varied depending on where the crime was committed. It also discovered numerous errors in the state's collection of death penalty data.
Tags: death penalty; capital punishment; law enforcement; crime; murder; criminal justice system; plea bargains; capital crimes; Ohio
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Hope I Die Before I Get Old
Horror stories about nursing homes seem to be commonplace, so the New Times looked at how regulators respond when nursing homes harm or even kill their residents. Reporting showed that state regulators in Arizona go light on nursing homes, rarely invoking fines or other penalties. The public is kept in the dark about what really goes on in nursing homes because inspection reports are very hard to get.
Tags: Arizona Department of Health Services; nursing home conditions; nursing home inspection reports; nursing home deaths
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Uncomfortably Numb
Lethal injection procedures have been largely unchanged - and unexamined - since the method was pioneered in the mid-1970s. It is possible that a condemned inmate might awaken during the lethal injection procedure, but because of the injection's paralytic agent, no observer would notice. The combination of two of the drugs used by executioners in Missouri and many other states has been condemned by the American Medical Veterinary Association for use in animal euthanasia.
Tags: lethal injection; death penalty
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Learning to Hit a Lick
These articles, written in a narrative form, chronicle the life of a teenage prostitute turned triple -murderer. The first article explores how she ended up working as a prostitute and the role her pimp played in the murders. The second part shows how violent crime previously existed in two of the victims' families.
Tags: murder; death penalty; sex; erotic dancing; teenage pregnancy