On December 21, the Death Penalty Information Center released its lat­est report, ​“The Death Penalty in 2010: Year End Report,” on sta­tis­tics and trends in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the past year. The report not­ed there was a 12% decrease in exe­cu­tions in 2010 com­pared to 2009 and a more than 50% drop com­pared to 1999. DPIC pro­ject­ed that the num­ber of new death sen­tences will be 114 for 2010, near last year’s num­ber of 112, which was the low­est num­ber since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. Death sen­tences declined in all four regions of the coun­try over the past ten years, with a 50 per­cent decrease nation­wide when the cur­rent decade is com­pared to the 1990s. Only 12 states car­ried out exe­cu­tions in 2010, most­ly in the South, and only sev­en states car­ried out more than one exe­cu­tion. Texas led the coun­try with 17 exe­cu­tions, but that was a sig­nif­i­cant drop from last year. The num­ber of new death sen­tences in Texas this year was 8, a dra­mat­ic decline from 1999 when 48 peo­ple were sen­tenced to death. Since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976, 82% of the exe­cu­tions have been in the South. California has not had an exe­cu­tion in almost 5 years, and the same is true for North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and many oth­er states that rarely car­ry out the death penal­ty. ​“Whether it’s con­cerns about the high costs of the death penal­ty at a time when bud­gets are being slashed, the risks of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent, unfair­ness, or oth­er rea­sons, the nation con­tin­ued to move away from the death penal­ty in 2010,” said Richard Dieter, DPIC’s Executive Director and the report’s author.

(Read ​“The Death Penalty in 2010: Year End Report,” Dec. 21, 2010. DPIC’s press release may be read here. See also pre­vi­ous DPIC Reports.

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