DPIC Analysis: Federal Execution Spree Out of Step with U.S. Death Penalty Trends and Attitudes

At a time in which the United States as a whole and indi­vid­ual states and coun­ties have con­tin­ued their long-term move­ment away from the death penal­ty, the fed­er­al government’s cur­rent exe­cu­tion spree has estab­lished it as an out­lier juris­dic­tion out of step with the prac­tices of the nation as a whole.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has exe­cut­ed five pris­on­ers in less than two months (click to enlarge map), with two more exe­cu­tions slat­ed for September 22 and 24. No state has car­ried out any exe­cu­tions in that peri­od and none has any planned before the sched­uled end of the fed­er­al spree. Two-thirds of the way through 2020, U.S. states are on pace to car­ry out the fewest exe­cu­tions in 37 years. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has already car­ried out more exe­cu­tions in 2020 than in any oth­er year since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s.

The dis­con­nect between the fed­er­al increase in exe­cu­tions and the decrease in state death-penal­ty usage has no par­al­lel in mod­ern U.S. history. 

The June 2020 Gallup Values and Beliefs poll report­ed the per­cent­age of Americans who say the death penal­ty is moral­ly accept­able was the low­est in the 20-year his­to­ry of the poll. 54% said they found cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment moral­ly accept­able, down 17 per­cent­age points since 2006. In March 2020, Colorado became the 22^nd U.S. state to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and in the first half of the year, Louisiana and Utah marked ten years since their last exe­cu­tions. 34 American states — 68% of the Union — have now either for­mal­ly abol­ished the death penal­ty or not put any­one to death in more than a decade. 

Against that trend, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment resumed exe­cu­tions on July 14, after a 17-year hiatus.

Only five states have car­ried out exe­cu­tions in the first eight months of 2020, and their col­lec­tive sev­en exe­cu­tions project to 10.5 exe­cu­tions for the year. Only Texas and Tennessee cur­rent­ly have any exe­cu­tions sched­uled for the remain­der of the year. The last time there were few­er than 11 state exe­cu­tions in a cal­en­dar year was 1983, when five states put a total of five pris­on­ers to death.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has nev­er car­ried out more than five exe­cu­tions in civil­ian courts in any year since the start of World War II. Five fed­er­al pris­on­ers were exe­cut­ed under President Harry S Truman In 1948. On August 8, 1942, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment exe­cut­ed six men who had been tried and con­vict­ed by a mil­i­tary tri­bunal on charges of wartime sabotage.

Most states have halt­ed cap­i­tal tri­als and exe­cu­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Nine sched­uled exe­cu­tions have been halt­ed or resched­uled out of pub­lic health con­cerns, sev­en in Texas and two in Tennessee. Missouri and Texas are the only states to have car­ried out exe­cu­tions dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, and though there is no way of prov­ing direct cau­sa­tion, COVID-19 out­breaks were report­ed sev­er­al weeks lat­er in the facil­i­ties in which the exe­cu­tions occurred. By con­trast, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has sched­uled sev­en exe­cu­tions dur­ing the pan­dem­ic in a facil­i­ty in which COVID-19 is already present and has belit­tled the health-relat­ed oppo­si­tion of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and spiritual advisors.

Another fac­tor estab­lish­ing the fed­er­al government’s 2020 exe­cu­tion spree as an out­lier is the num­ber of con­sec­u­tive exe­cu­tions for which the gov­ern­ment is respon­si­ble. Since Texas exe­cut­ed Billie Joe Wardlow on July 8, only the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has exe­cut­ed any­one. In the past fifty years, Texas is the only state that has ever exe­cut­ed as many as five peo­ple in a row. If the September fed­er­al exe­cu­tions go for­ward, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will have car­ried out the fourth largest exe­cu­tion spree in that peri­od, trail­ing the 12, 10, and 8 con­sec­u­tive exe­cu­tions by Texas January 10 through April 11, 2007, May 16 through June 4, 1997, and October 14 through November 13, 2007, respectively.