Year-End Reports

(Washington, D.C.) The coun­try is expect­ed to fin­ish 2009 with the fewest death sen­tences since the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1976, accord­ing to a report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center. Eleven states con­sid­ered abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty this year, a sig­nif­i­cant increase in leg­isla­tive activ­i­ty from pre­vi­ous years, as the high costs and lack of mea­sur­able ben­e­fits asso­ci­at­ed with this pun­ish­ment trou­bled law­mak­ers. Read ​“The Death Penalty in…

Executions resumed in 2008 after a de fac­to mora­to­ri­um was effec­tive­ly lift­ed by the Supreme Court fol­low­ing its deci­sion uphold­ing lethal injec­tion. But only the South returned to reg­u­lar exe­cu­tions, account­ing for 95% of exe­cu­tions car­ried out in the coun­try in 2008. Almost half of the exe­cu­tions were in Texas. In some states, such as California, Maryland, Delaware and North Carolina, the lethal injec­tion issue remains unset­tled, and no executions…

Two dra­mat­ic events this year sym­bol­ized the broad changes that have been occur­ring in the death penal­ty around the coun­try. Executions halt­ed after September 25 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the mix­ture of chem­i­cals used in lethal injec­tions in Kentucky (Baze v. Rees). This de fac­to mora­to­ri­um on lethal injec­tions con­tributed to the fewest num­ber of exe­cu­tions in 13…

The use of the death penal­ty in the U.S. con­tin­ued to decline in 2006, con­sis­tent with a pat­tern over the past six years. Executions dropped to their low­est lev­el in 10 years as many states grap­pled with prob­lems relat­ed to wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the lethal injec­tion process. The num­ber of death sen­tences and the size of death row are also decreas­ing. And for the first time, the Gallup Poll report­ed that more peo­ple sup­port­ed a sen­tence of life with­out parole over the death…

The year 2005 may be remem­bered as the year that life with­out parole became an accept­able alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty in the U.S. Texas became the 37^th out of 38 death penal­ty states to adopt this option for its juries. New York’s leg­is­la­ture did not restore the death penal­ty after it was found uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, leav­ing life with­out parole as the pun­ish­ment for cap­i­tal mur­der. Across the coun­try, the num­ber of death sen­tences dropped to record lows and some of the most notorious…