Reports

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 15^th 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.

Compared to the 1990’s, there has been a marked decline in death sentences in the U.S. since 2000. Every region of the country and every state that averaged one or more death sentences per year have seen a decline in the annual number of death sentences. The chart below compares the annual number of death sentences in each state in the 1990s with the 2000s. North Carolina, California, Florida, and Texas experienced the greatest declines in sentencing.  This issue and others are addressed in the Death Penalty Information Center’s Year End Report, released December 11, 2008.

The Death Penalty Information Center has released its 13th annual Year End Report, noting that executions have dropped to a 13-year low as a de facto moratorium took hold in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s examination of lethal injection procedures. Death sentences have also dropped considerably in recent years.  DPIC projected 110 new death sentences in 2007 - the lowest number since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, and a 60% drop since 1999.

On June 9, 2007 the Death Penalty Information Center released its new report, “A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts About the Death Penalty.” The report, based on results from DPIC’s national public opinion poll, received extensive national media coverage in major papers and electronic media. In addition, the report was discussed extensively on more than 25 Internet blogs, including many online criminal justice groups. Among the news organizations that featured this story were the following:

DPIC's 12th annual Year End Report was released on December 14 and reveals a broad decline in the use of the death penalty in the U.S.