2016 Death Sentences by Name, Race, and County

31 New Death Sentences were imposed in the U.S. in 2016. That is the fewest num­ber of new death sen­tences imposed in any year in the mod­ern his­to­ry of U.S. cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, which dates back to 1972 when the Supreme Court declared the coun­try’s death penal­ty laws uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in Furman v. Georgia. This is a 37% decline from the 49 new death sen­tences imposed in the U.S. in 2015, which itself had been a 40-year low. Only 13 of the 31 states with the death penal­ty imposed any death sen­tences in 2016. (DPIC ini­tial­ly report­ed 30 new death sen­tences in 2016, but fur­ther research indi­cat­ed that the death sen­tence imposed on Vahtiece Kirkman in Florida was, in fact, a new death sen­tence, rather than a resen­tence, as previously reported.)

Defendants Sentenced to Death in 2016

Number of Jurisdictions Imposing New Death Sentences, 2012 – 2016

Death Sentences by Race of Defendant in 2016

2016 Death Sentences by County

2016 Death Sentences by State

Related Links

• DPIC’s 2016 Year End Report
  
• Download 2016 sen­tenc­ing data as a Microsoft Excel file

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