A Snapshot in Time: The U.S. Reaches 1500 Executions

When Georgia exe­cut­ed Marion Wilson, Jr., on June 20, 2019, it marked the 1500^th exe­cu­tion in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all death-penal­ty statutes in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, then four years lat­er per­mit­ted exe­cu­tions to go for­ward under new statutes osten­si­bly enact­ed to address the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al arbi­trari­ness that had plagued the old laws. His exe­cu­tion, ana­lysts say, reflects a num­ber of trends in the mod­ern death penal­ty and pro­vid­ed a moment in time to con­sid­er whether states had in fact redressed the sys­temic con­cerns that led the Court to rule the death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in Furman.

The Supreme Court has long declared that the death penal­ty should be reserved for the worst of the worst mur­ders and the worst of the worst mur­der­ers. Yet, its crit­ics con­tend, it is instead imposed arbi­trar­i­ly based upon race, geog­ra­phy, eco­nom­ics, and the qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. In many respects unre­mark­able as a cap­i­tal case, Wilson’s tri­al, appeal, and exe­cu­tion high­light­ed those con­cerns. In 2007, after a two-year inves­ti­ga­tion into Georgia’s death penal­ty, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution con­clud­ed that “[g]etting the death penal­ty in Georgia is as pre­dictable as a light­ning strike.” As evi­dence for that con­clu­sion, the paper com­pared the con­vic­tions and death sen­tences imposed on Wilson and his co-defen­dant Robert Earl Butts with a near­ly indis­tin­guish­able mur­der in a near­by coun­ty. Reviewing the same cas­es in an arti­cle on the state of the death penal­ty at the 1,500^th U.S. exe­cu­tion for The Intercept, Liliana Segura wrote: ​“Their crime had strik­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties to a 1995 mur­der in a near­by coun­ty — one in which two young men killed a col­lege stu­dent from Gambia. In both cas­es, the co-defen­dants had asked for a ride, then shot the vic­tim and burned the car. In both cas­es, who exact­ly fired the fatal shot remained unclear. Yet Wilson and Butts were sen­tenced to die, where­as the oth­er men received life without parole.” 

Wilson’s case also raised ques­tions of dis­pro­por­tion­al treat­ment with­in his own offense: his pros­e­cu­tor had offered Wilson, but not Butts, a plea deal to a life sen­tence and Wilson insist­ed to the moment of his exe­cu­tion that he had not killed any­one. His court-appoint­ed lawyers, who had no death-penal­ty expe­ri­ence, were incom­pe­tent and, Segura notes, one lat­er went to jail. Far from being among the worst-of-the-worst offend­ers, Wilson had expe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant trau­ma and neglect as a child, like a major­i­ty of death-row pris­on­ers. However, his lawyers failed to inves­ti­gate and present this evi­dence to his jury. As a Black man, Wilson was a mem­ber of a minor­i­ty group over­rep­re­sent­ed on death row, and he was exe­cut­ed in the South, where more than 80% of all U.S. exe­cu­tions have taken place.

Donovan Parks, the vic­tim in Wilson’s case, was a prison guard. Every death-penal­ty state autho­rizes the death penal­ty for the mur­der of law enforce­ment offi­cers, yet data from more than 40 years and 1,500 exe­cu­tions show that exe­cu­tions have not made police safer. A DPIC review of FBI homi­cide data found that eight of the nine safest states for law enforce­ment don’t have the death penal­ty at all, and the ninth, Wyoming, has no one on death row. The four death-penal­ty states with the low­est law enforce­ment vic­tim­iza­tion rates (Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and Wyoming) have each exe­cut­ed few­er than one per­son per decade since 1976.

The 1500^th exe­cu­tion comes at a time when the death penal­ty is in long-term decline. While it took the United States sev­en years to go from 500 to 1000 exe­cu­tions, it has tak­en twice as long, 14 years, to go from 1000 to 1500. Fewer than 50 death sen­tences have been imposed in each of the last four years, and those sen­tences have been con­cen­trat­ed in just a few states. Executions have also become increas­ing­ly geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed. In 2018, more than half of all exe­cu­tions took place in Texas, and only eight states car­ried out any executions.

Even as the num­ber of exe­cu­tions has declined, prob­lems with the use of the death penal­ty have per­sist­ed. With 165 for­mer death-row pris­on­ers exon­er­at­ed, one wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and death sen­tenced per­son has been released from death-row for every 9.1 peo­ple exe­cut­ed. Since the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty, more than 200 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed under prac­tices that were lat­er declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Prior to Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rul­ing that banned the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, at least 43 intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled pris­on­ers were exe­cut­ed. An addi­tion­al 20 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed post-Atkins under a Texas stan­dard that was found uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in Moore v. Texas. Twenty-two juve­nile offend­ers were exe­cut­ed before the Supreme Court deemed it uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in Roper v. Simmons. Florida exe­cut­ed 23 peo­ple who were sen­tenced under uncon­sti­tu­tion­al lim­i­ta­tions on mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, and at least 90 oth­ers were exe­cut­ed in oth­er states that allowed mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence only if it was causal­ly relat­ed to the crime. Another 11 were exe­cut­ed with­out a jury deter­mi­na­tion of the facts nec­es­sary to impose a death sentence.

Recent exe­cu­tions con­tin­ue to illus­trate seri­ous flaws in death-penal­ty cas­es. Of the 25 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in 2018, 18 had evi­dence of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, brain injury or intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, or chron­ic child­hood trau­ma. Four pris­on­ers attempt­ed to waive appeals and ​“vol­un­teer” for exe­cu­tion – three were exe­cut­ed and the fourth died by suicide.