Acknowledgments

This Report is the product of thousands of hours of labor by dozens of people, including colleagues, administrative assistants, and many tireless and immensely resourceful and productive student research assistants at Columbia Law School. Special thanks go to John Lundin, Randy Hertz, Jon Lloyd, Garth Davies, Michael J. Balzano (for his terrific graphics assistance), Clare Huntington, Julia Tarver, Honri Marcel, Janet Sabel, and especially Kate McGarry. We also express our appreciation to Alicia Amezcua, Sandor Bak, Dan Canova, Molly Bishop, Kristin Buff, Sean Feller, Kara Finck, Brandon Garrett, Brian Gifford, George Hatzmann, Justine Harris, Tricia Hoefling, Nick Isaacson, Matt Kadusian, Alice Kim, Hyeon Lee, Jeremiah Marble, Stephan Murphy, Stefan Schick, Yosef Rothstein, Troy Selvaratnam, Erika Smith, and Ernest Yakob.

Scores of people in death-sentencing states around the nation have helped us immensely over the years typically taking time away from important activities and withering schedules to provide us with information about capital cases in their states. We are very grateful. In this regard, we would especially like to remember Patsy Morris, and to thank Donna Gloekner and Professor Michael L. Radelet.

From 1991 until June 1999, this research was funded entirely by the Columbia Law School through a series of stipends for faculty research and student research assistance during the summer months. We deeply appreciate that support. We also express our thanks to the Law and Society Program of the Open Society Institute for a grant that supported the work of one of the authors, Valerie West, during the spring and summer of 1999 and has helped defray the cost of distributing this Report to the public.