Bureau of Justice Statistics Releases 2017 Data on U.S. Capital Punishment

The decline in the U.S. death-row pop­u­la­tion con­tin­ued for a 17^th con­sec­u­tive year in 2017, accord­ing to new­ly released find­ings by the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics. The data in the Bureau’s annu­al death-penal­ty report, Capital Punishment, 2017: Selected Findi­­ngs, con­firm the long-term find­ings of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund show­ing that death row has fall­en in size every year since 2001. 

BJS reviewed data relat­ing to every per­son under sen­tence of death who was incar­cer­at­ed in a state or fed­er­al non-mil­i­tary cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty at any time dur­ing 2017. The Bureau found that 2,703 pris­on­ers were on death row at the end of 2017, down 94 (3%) from the end of 2016. BJS report­ed that death row declined in size in 18 states, remained the same size in 11, and increased in 3 states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Collectively, Florida (down 33), Delaware (12), and Texas (10) account­ed for 59% of the nation­al decline. The declines in Florida and Delaware coin­cid­ed with court deci­sions in those states declar­ing their cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing prac­tices uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Texas had 3 more exe­cu­tions than new death sen­tences; 5 oth­er for­mer Texas death-row pris­on­ers were resen­tenced to life or less and two oth­ers died on death row.

Nationwide, 4.6 times as many pris­on­ers were removed from death row by means oth­er than exe­cu­tion than were put to death in 2017. BJS report­ed 24 deaths on death row ver­sus 23 by exe­cu­tion. Eighty-one oth­ers left death row as a result of over­turn­ing their con­vic­tions or death sen­tences, being non-cap­i­tal­ly resen­tenced, or hav­ing their death sentences commuted.

The report also showed that death penal­ty usage is con­cen­trat­ed in par­tic­u­lar regions of the coun­try. Twenty of the 23 exe­cu­tions (87%) took place in the South, dou­ble the num­ber of death sen­tences imposed in that region. 3.75 times more peo­ple were removed from death row in the region for rea­sons oth­er than exe­cu­tion than were exe­cut­ed. Half of all new death row admis­sions were con­cen­trat­ed in three states in the Pacific Southwest who col­lec­tive­ly exe­cut­ed no one. Correctional facil­i­ties in California, Arizona, and Nevada received a com­bined total of 17 death-row pris­on­ers, while no oth­er west­ern states added any new death-row prisoners.

BJS also report­ed that the aver­age time between the impo­si­tion of the lat­est death sen­tence and the date on which a death sen­tence was car­ried out increased to 243 months (20.25 years) in 2017, up from 204 months (17 years) in 2016 and 153 months (12.75 years) in 2007. BJS did not explore the caus­es of the increase, but a DPIC analy­sis of exe­cu­tion data from 2012 through 2017 saw a decline in the pro­por­tion of cas­es that moved from an ini­tial death sen­tence to exe­cu­tion in few­er than 15 years. The medi­an time between ini­tial sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tion increased from between 14 – 16 years every year from 2012 – 2015 to 19 years in 2017. BJS cal­cu­lat­ed the time between sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tion based on the most recent sen­tenc­ing date, exclud­ing the time on death row attrib­ut­able to pri­or uncon­sti­tu­tion­al con­vic­tions or death sen­tences. It found that, “[o]f the 23 pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed in 2017, a total of 16 (more than two-thirds) had been sen­tenced in 1999 or earlier.”