"The Politics of Life and Death".

• Position: THE monthly JOURNALISM AWARD - Brief article

"The Politics of Life and Death" by Dan Horn, Cincinnati Enquirer, April 15, 2007

Opponents of the death penalty have always argued that it is unevenly applied. But an April 15 article by the Cincinnati Enquirer's Dan Horn exposes just how much an inmate's fate may depend on random chance. In Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, and Tennessee, Horn found, the outcome of a death row inmate's appeal rests almost entirely on whether the randomly selected three-judge panel that hears his case has a Republican or a Democratic majority. Horn and the Enquirer staff arrived at this conclusion by analyzing every death penalty appeals decision issued since 2000 by the Sixth Circuit, the federal appeals court with jurisdiction over those four states. The results were disturbing. Judges appointed by Republican presidents voted against death penalty appeals 85 percent of the time; judges appointed by...