The Death Penalty Information Center released the  ​“The Death Penalty in 2009: Year End Report”  on December 18, not­ing that the coun­try is expect­ed to fin­ish 2009 with the fewest death sen­tences since the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1976. Eleven states con­sid­ered abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty this year, a sig­nif­i­cant increase in leg­isla­tive activ­i­ty from pre­vi­ous years, as the high costs and lack of mea­sur­able ben­e­fits asso­ci­at­ed with this pun­ish­ment trou­bled law­mak­ers.

“The annu­al num­ber of death sen­tences in the U.S. has dropped for sev­en straight years and is 60% less than in the 1990s,” said Richard Dieter, the report’s author and DPIC’s exec­u­tive direc­tor. ​“In the last two years, three states have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and a grow­ing num­ber of states are ask­ing whether it’s worth keep­ing. This entire decade has been marked by a declin­ing use of the death penal­ty.” There were 106 death sen­tences in 2009 com­pared with a high of 328 in 1994. 

New Mexico became the 15th state to abol­ish the death penal­ty, and 9 men who were sen­tenced to death were exon­er­at­ed in 2009, the sec­ond high­est num­ber of exon­er­a­tions since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed. The total num­ber of exon­er­a­tions since 1973 has now reached 139. 

(Read ​“The Death Penalty in 2009: Year End Report” here, Dec. 18, 2009. DPIC’s press release may be read here . See also pre­vi­ous DPIC Reports.

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