DPIC has two new resources for comparing the use of the death penalty in the various states. The first is a chart listing the states in order of their total death sentences as a fraction of their population. The second measures the total executions in each state as compared to the total number of death sentences. Even though Texas leads the country with the most executions since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, it is eleventh in the U.S. in terms of death sentences per capita through the end of 2007. The five leading death-sentencing states on a per capita basis are Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Nevada, and Delaware. The full ranking of death sentences per capita by state may be found here. There has been a marked decline in death sentences in the U.S. since 2000. The Bureau of Justice Statistic’s most recent count of death sentences for 2007 showed it to be at the lowest number since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

The second chart compares states on the basis of executions per death sentence, and it offers a way of examining what happens to death sentences as they work their way through the state appellate process. In some states, like Virginia, a high execution ratio indicates that cases are rarely overturned and move relatively quickly toward execution. Virginia is the only state that has executed more than half of the people it has sentenced to death. In states with a lower ratio, either more sentences are being reversed with inmates being taken off death row prior to execution, or the state is relatively slower in completing the appeals process. The chart of executions per death sentence can be found here.

(Posted May 1, 2009). See Sentencing and Arbritrariness. See also DPIC’s chart on executions per capita. Listen to DPIC’s Podcast on Arbitrariness.