Over 400 media out­lets around the coun­try report­ed on DPIC’s recent 2011 Year-End Report. Coverage includ­ed sto­ries on the dra­mat­ic drop in death sen­tences, the decline in exe­cu­tions, and few­er states hav­ing the death penal­ty. Articles appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, CNN, TIME, and many oth­er papers. National broad­cast out­lets such as NBC’s Nightly News, National Public Radio’s Morning Editiion, and CBS Radio ran pieces, and the head­line news was not­ed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Other cov­er­age appeared on over 100 local radio and TV sta­tions. Among the papers writ­ing edi­to­ri­als on the trends cit­ed in the report were, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Dallas Morning News. The L.A. Times’s edi­to­r­i­al not­ed, ​“The Death Penalty Information Center’s annu­al report on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America, released Thursday, showed that exe­cu­tions con­tin­ued to drop in 2011, to 43; that’s down from 85 in 2000 and 46 last year. More sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the num­ber of death sen­tences across the coun­try fell dra­mat­i­cal­ly this year, to 78 from 112 in 2010. And per­haps most sig­nif­i­cant of all, the per­cent­age of Americans who say they sup­port the death penal­ty, which was 80% in 1994, fell to 61%, the low­est ever.” The Washington Post​’s edi­to­r­i­al attrib­uted the decline in death sen­tences in part to the decreas­ing con­fi­dence in the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem, not­ing, ​“The risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son must weigh heav­i­ly in the debate. There can be no deny­ing that the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem makes mis­takes… Public safe­ty and appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment for the worst crimes can be achieved through life sen­tences with­out the dan­ger of tak­ing an inno­cent life.” The Dallas Morning News edi­to­r­i­al echoed the same hes­i­ta­tion when it comes to the death penal­ty, say­ing ​“The jus­tice sys­tem will nev­er be fool­proof, and, there­fore, use of the death penal­ty is never justified.”

(“Doubts on the death penal­ty,” Los Angeles Times, edi­to­r­i­al, December 17, 2011; ​“A Welcome Drop in Executions in 2011, Washington Post, edi­to­r­i­al, December 31, 2011; ​“Death Penalty on the Wane,” Dallas Morning News, edi­to­r­i­al, December 28, 2011). Read DPIC’s 2011 Year End Report. Read a sum­ma­ry of the media cov­er­age. Read more Editorials on the death penalty.

Citation Guide