DPIC Analysis: U.S. Enters Longest Period in 40 Years Without Any State Carrying Out an Execution

The United States has entered the longest peri­od in 40 years with­out any state car­ry­ing out an exe­cu­tion, an analy­sis of data in the Death Penalty Information Center exe­cu­tion data­base has found. 

On February 18, 2021, the U.S. reached 225 days since Texas exe­cut­ed Billy Wardlow on July 8, 2020, the last state exe­cu­tion con­duct­ed since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. That inter­val sur­passed the 224 days between the September 25, 2007 exe­cu­tion of Michael Richard in Texas and the May 6, 2008 exe­cu­tion of William Lynd in Georgia, while the U.S. Supreme Court was con­sid­er­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Kentucky​’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col in Baze v. Rees.

On February 11, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand an injunc­tion against Alabama’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Willie B. Smith III, unless the state agreed to per­mit his reli­gious advi­sor to min­is­ter to him in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber. Alabama then called off the exe­cu­tion, which would have end­ed the stretch of time with­out a state exe­cu­tion at 218 days. The only longer peri­ods of time between state exe­cu­tions since exe­cu­tions resumed in January 1977 occurred before states had ful­ly resumed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Four of the first five exe­cu­tions in the U.S. after the Supreme Court upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of new death penal­ty statutes in Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, and Jurek v. Texas, and in July 1976 involved so-called death-row ​“vol­un­teers” who waived their appeals.

The longest peri­od of time between state exe­cu­tions in the post-Gregg era is 858 days, from the January 17, 1977 exe­cu­tion of Gary Gilmore in Utah — the first exe­cu­tion of the mod­ern era — to the May 25, 1979 exe­cu­tion of John Spenkelink in Florida. Gilmore had giv­en up his appeal rights and asked to be exe­cut­ed. 150 days passed between Spenkelink’s and Nevada’s exe­cu­tion of Jesse Bishop, also a vol­un­teer, on October 22, 1979. Bishop’s exe­cu­tion was fol­lowed by the exe­cu­tion of anoth­er vol­un­teer, Steven Judy, in Indiana 504 days lat­er, on March 9, 1981. 519 days lat­er, Virginia exe­cut­ed Frank Coppola on August 10, 1982. Coppola also waived his appellate rights.

At the same time that states were abstain­ing from exe­cu­tions, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment was embark­ing on the longest and most sus­tained exe­cu­tion spree in the mod­ern his­to­ry of the U.S. death penal­ty. The Trump admin­is­tra­tion car­ried out 13 con­sec­u­tive exe­cu­tions between July 14, 2020 and January 16, 2021, the most con­sec­u­tive exe­cu­tions by any juris­dic­tion since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s. The 186 days of the exe­cu­tion spree was the longest peri­od of time a sin­gle juris­dic­tion was respon­si­ble for mul­ti­ple exe­cu­tions while no one else executed anyone.