DAY ONE

How we analyzed the data

For this project, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution researched the facts behind 2,328 murder convictions in Georgia from Jan. 1, 1995, through Dec. 31, 2004.

The newspaper used court and prison records to identify convictions during that decade.

To dig out details of the cases, the newspaper turned to a variety of sources: Georgia Supreme Court decisions; transcripts of trials and guilty pleas; police reports and investigative summaries; medical examiners' reports; search and arrest warrants; other court documents (including indictments, sentencing sheets and legal motions filed by prosecutors and defense attorneys); trial judges' reports of death-penalty cases; state and federal court decisions; interviews; and, to supplement information gleaned from court files, news media accounts.

Sentencing data for most of the cases were obtained from the Department of Corrections. The race and age of the murder victims were obtained from court files and from data obtained from the Georgia Department of Human Resources.

Information on cases that were appealed was obtained from the Georgia Supreme Court.

For murderers who did not appeal, the newspaper obtained documents from court files in most of Georgia's 159 counties. A few dozen court clerks generously retrieved and copied case files in counties with relatively few files. The newspaper sent reporters to inspect and copy records in more than 100 counties.

When court files contained insufficient information, the Journal-Constitution obtained more detail from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, local district attorneys and state and local medical examiners. In cases where information was still inadequate, reporters interviewed prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and law enforcement officials.

Once the newspaper assembled the information, reporters and editors examined details of each case to determine which ones were eligible for a capital prosecution. State law sets out 10 "aggravating circumstances" that allow a district attorney to seek the death penalty.

To determine which offenders qualified for the first aggravator — whether the murder was committed by someone with a conviction for a prior capital felony — the newspaper obtained prior conviction information from prison systems in Georgia and other states. For the other aggravators, the newspaper relied on the files it compiled on the 2,328 murder cases.

To identify cases that qualified under the seventh aggravator — whether the murder involved torture, depravity or maiming — the newspaper examined every Georgia Supreme Court decision that upheld a death sentence on those grounds. It then applied the standards cited in those rulings.

The newspaper's review excluded murderers who were 16 or younger. But 17-year-olds were included, because the U.S. Supreme Court did not bar execution of that age group until March 2005 — after the timeframe examined by the Journal-Constitution.

The review excluded murderers who pleaded guilty but mentally ill or mentally retarded and therefore were ineligible for a death prosecution.

Because the study only included murderers who were convicted from 1995 through 2004, it did not count re-sentencing trials as separate cases. The AJC also excluded cases in which the conviction was overturned on appeal, unless the defendant was convicted again within the decade examined by the newspaper.

The Journal-Constitution mailed a summary of the data to each of the state's 49 district attorneys and asked them to review it. Many DAs sent back suggested corrections.

University of Maryland criminologist Ray Paternoster worked with the newspaper to analyze the data further. He took into account differences between murder cases – such as evidence and aggravation – to look at whether where murderers killed, or who they killed, changed their chances of receiving a death sentence.

Paternoster's work was reviewed by Jeffrey Fagan, a death-penalty expert and professor at Columbia Law School in New York City.

Other agencies that provided information were the now-defunct Multi-County Public Defender's Office, the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Reporters and editors who collected information for this project were Bill Rankin, Heather Vogell, Sonji Jacobs, Jim Walls, Megan Clarke, Cameron McWhirter, David Milliron, Soyia Ellison, Kay Powell, George Mathis, Lucy Soto, Lateef Mungin and Rich Whitt, as well as news researchers Alice Wertheim, Sharon Gaus, Joni Zeccola, Jennifer Ryan, Richard Hallman and Nisa Asokan.