On December 16, DPIC released its annu­al report on the lat­est devel­op­ments in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, ​“The Death Penalty in 2015: Year End Report.” The death penal­ty declined by vir­tu­al­ly every mea­sure in 2015. 28 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed, the fewest since 1991. Death sen­tences dropped 33% from last year’s his­toric low, with 49 peo­ple being sen­tenced to death this year. There have now been few­er death sen­tences imposed in the last decade than in the decade before the U.S. Supreme Court declared exist­ing death penal­ty laws uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 1972. Just six states car­ried out exe­cu­tions, the fewest since 1988; and three states (Texas, Missouri, and Georgia) account­ed for 86% of all exe­cu­tions. For the first time since 1995, the num­ber of peo­ple on death row fell below 3,000. Public sup­port for the death penal­ty also dropped, and the 2015 American Values Survey found that a major­i­ty of Americans pre­fer life with­out parole to the death penal­ty as pun­ish­ment for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der. Six peo­ple were exon­er­at­ed from death row this year, bring­ing the total num­ber of exon­er­a­tions since 1973 to 156. ​“The use of the death penal­ty is becom­ing increas­ing­ly rare and increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed in the United States. These are not just annu­al blips in sta­tis­tics, but reflect a broad change in atti­tudes about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment across the coun­try,” said Robert Dunham, DPIC’s Executive Director. See DPIC’s Press Release. View a video sum­ma­riz­ing the report. (Click image to enlarge.)

The report also includes a dis­cus­sion of exe­cu­tions this year that involved inmates who had symp­toms of severe men­tal ill­ness, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, or extreme trau­ma. It cov­ers devel­op­ments across the coun­try relat­ed to lethal injec­tion, and fea­tures quotes from notable voic­es who spoke about the death penal­ty this year.

(“The Death Penalty in 2015: Year End Report,” DPIC, December 16, 2015). See oth­er DPIC Reports.

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