The SCOTUS distortion of state sentencing realities

Reflecting on the numbers and many comments from my post on state sentencing realities, it dawned on me that the US Supreme Court perhaps merits the most blame for the undue modern obsession with the death penalty.  Even though only roughly 1 in every 10,000 state felony sentences is a death sentence, the Supreme Court this past term had at least eight cases on its ever-shrinking docket focused on a state death sentence (see DPIC list here) and only one case focused on a state non-capital sentence (Cunningham).

Though I have not (yet) gone back and done an exact count, I know that over the past few decades the Supreme Court has reviewed hundreds of state death sentences (includes a couple it has reviewed more than once), but it has only reviewed a handful of state non-capital sentences.  With the High Court setting the pace and the tone for state sentencing litigation, I suppose it is ultimately not surprising that lower courts and advocactes and the media share with the Justices an unhealthy and costly obsession with the death penalty.

Some recent related posts:

• Why I obsess over courts and others obsessing about the death penalty
• Death and the SCOTUS docket
• Another SCOTUS capital case grant that has me wondering
• A capital waste of time?
• More death and habeas from SCOTUS
• Roberts, the cert pool, and sentencing jurisprudence