DPIC Analysis: Execution Trends Continue to Decline in 2017

The long-term decline in exe­cu­tions in the United States will con­tin­ue in 2017, accord­ing to an analy­sis of exe­cu­tion data by the Death Penalty Information Center. Although the num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the United States in 2017 will sur­pass the 20 exe­cu­tions car­ried out last year — which had been a 25-year low — the data reflects that long-term, mid-term, and short-term exe­cu­tion trends in the United States will con­tin­ue to decline.

DPIC’s analy­sis shows that, even if all the exe­cu­tions cur­rent­ly sched­uled to take place through the end of 2017 are car­ried out, the aver­age num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the United States over the past 3, 5, and 10 years will drop by 8.4%, 9.1%, and 3.6%, respectively. 

The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the United States has fall­en in 14 of the last 19 years, from a high of 98 in 1999 to last year’s gen­er­a­tional low. After reach­ing a 14-year low in 2008, exe­cu­tions increased by 15 in 2009 before declin­ing or remain­ing steady the next seven years. 

Alabama’s exe­cu­tion of Torrey McNabb on October 19 was the 21^st exe­cu­tion in the United States in 2017, with sev­en more exe­cu­tions sched­uled this year. If all are car­ried out, the num­ber of exe­cu­tions over the last three years will still fall by sev­en, with an aver­age of 25.3 exe­cu­tions per year; there will be a decrease of 15 exe­cu­tions over the past five years, with the aver­age num­ber of exe­cu­tions over that peri­od falling to 30.4 per year; and there will be a decrease of 14 exe­cu­tions over the past decade, with the aver­age num­ber of exe­cu­tions per year falling to 37.1.

According to an analy­sis by The Marshall Project, the increase in the num­ber of exe­cu­tions in 2017 ​“does not sug­gest that exe­cu­tions are like­ly to become more com­mon.” Instead, it reports, ​“exe­cu­tions are like­ly to keep declin­ing for one big rea­son: juries are hand­ing out few­er death sentences.” 

USA Today reports that the exe­cu­tions today are the rem­nants of ​“large­ly decades-old death sen­tences being car­ried out.” Those exe­cu­tions, the paper reports, ​“have illus­trat­ed the prob­lems [death-penal­ty] oppo­nents high­light in their quest to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” includ­ing unre­dressed claims of inno­cence and requests for foren­sic test­ing, lack of trans­paren­cy in car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions, and race-of-vic­tim dis­par­i­ties — ​“near­ly all the mur­der vic­tims [in the exe­cu­tion cas­es] were white.” 

Rob Smith, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Fair Punishment Project, said that the peo­ple being exe­cut­ed today were sen­tenced years ago ​“by juries who would nev­er return that death sen­tence today and pros­e­cu­tors who would nev­er seek that death sen­tence today.” He said the his­toric decline in new death sen­tences, from more than 300 per year in the mid-1990s to few­er than 50 per year, will result in few­er exe­cu­tions going forward. 

Heather Beaudoin, nation­al orga­niz­er for death-penal­ty abo­li­tion­ist group, Equal Justice USA, said she is ​“not discourage[d]” by this year’s exe­cu­tion num­bers. What ​“we’re see­ing [is] the last grasps of try­ing to hold on to the death penal­ty in this coun­try,” she said. 

Ben Cohen, a lawyer with the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans, said today’s exe­cu­tions large­ly involve cas­es tried ​“twen­ty years ago [dur­ing] the height of the death sen­tenc­ing era.” The ​“long-term trend,” he told USA Today, ​“remains clear­ly aimed at replac­ing death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions with life without parole.”