Facts & Research
History of the Death Penalty
The death penalty has existed in the United States since colonial times. Its history is intertwined with slavery, segregation, and social reform movements.
There are excellent sources available for those interested in the history of capital punishment. The following pages contain a brief summary of that history, with an emphasis on developments in the United States.
This chart* chronicles the United State’s use of the death penalty over the past four centuries. The chart highlights the gradual rise in use of capital punishment in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries; a peak of executions in the early 20th century; moratorium; and then the resumption of executions after moratorium.
The use of the death penalty has declined sharply in the United States over the past 25 years. New death sentences have fallen more than 85% since peaking at more than 300 death sentences per year in the mid 1990s. Executions have declined by 75% since peaking at 98 in 1999.
For a timeline of significant events in the history of the death penalty in the United States, see DPIC’s Death Penalty Timeline. For dynamic visualizations and more information on executions and new death sentences in the modern era of capital punishment, see DPIC’s Executions and Sentencing Data pages.
*The statistics used in the chart were primarily compiled from M. Watt Espy and John Ortiz Smylka’s database, “Executions in the U.S. 1608-2002: The Espy File.” (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) Periodically, DPIC will feature additional information derived from the Espy file. See also The Espy File.
News & Developments
History of the Death Penalty
Dec 07, 2022
As Lethal Injection Turns Forty, States Botch a Record Number of Executions
On December 7, 1982, Texas strapped Charles Brooks to a gurney, inserted an intravenous line into his arm, and injected a lethal dose of sodium thiopental into his veins, launching the lethal-injection era of American executions. In the precisely …
History of the Death Penalty
Nov 07, 2022
Closing the Slaughterhouse: The Inside Story of Death Penalty Abolition in Virginia
Virginia made history in 2021 when it became the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty. Closing the Slaughterhouse: The Inside Story of Death Penalty Abolition in Virginia tells the story of the commonwealth’s…
Innocence
Aug 01, 2022
Massachusetts Formally Exonerates Last ‘Witch’ Wrongfully Condemned During Salem Hysteria. Will Connecticut Follow Suit?
As Massachusetts formally exonerated the last person condemned for witchcraft in the colony, efforts are under way to clear the names of the 46 people wrongfully charged with witchcraft in neighboring Connecticut …
Innocence
Jun 21, 2022
Pennsylvania Teen Exonerated 91 Years After Sham Trial and Execution on Racially Motivated Charges that He Had Murdered a White Woman
An African-American teenager who was convicted and sentenced to death in Pennsylvania on false charges that he had murdered a white woman has been exonerated, 91 years after he was executed. On June 13, 2022, Delaw…
Race
Jan 14, 2022
Commentary: ‘Southern Pride,’ White Mob Mentality, and the Death Penalty
The same brand of Southern pride that inspired lynchings after the U.S. Civil War fuels support for the death penalty today, writes legal analyst Joia Erin Thornton (pictured) in a commentary on the web publication, Blavity
Innocence
Sep 01, 2021
Massachusetts 8th Graders Push to Exonerate Woman Sentenced to Death in 1693 in Salem Witchcraft Hysteria
A group of 8th graders from North Andover Middle School in North Andover, Massachusetts are championing efforts to posth…
Race
May 06, 2021
South Carolina Legislature Authorizes Use of Electric Chair and Firing Squad as State Reaches 10 Years Without an Execution
One day shy of the tenth anniversary of the state’s last execution, the South Carolina legislature, frustrated by the state’s inability to obtain execution drugs, approved a bill that would authorize putting prisoners to death in …
Race
Apr 30, 2021
Martin Luther King III: Virginia’s Death Penalty Repeal Shows ‘What is Possible When We Confront This Country’s Racist Past’
The history of racial oppression and lynching in the U.S. South has, civil rights advocate Martin Luther King III writes, “too frequently … gone untold and unaddressed.” But, he says in an April 17, 2021 op-ed in USA Today
History of the Death Penalty
Apr 09, 2021
Report: 83% of Death Sentences Have Not Resulted in Executions Under Ohio’s ‘Lethargic’ Death Penalty
Just one out of every six death sentences imposed in Ohio in the past forty years has resulted in an execution, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s 2020 Ohio Capital Crimes Annual Report. The report, released by
History of the Death Penalty
Mar 24, 2021
Virginia Becomes 23rd State and the First in the South to Abolish the Death Penalty
Saying “[t]here is no place today for the death penalty in this commonwealth, in the South, or in this nation,” Governor Ralph Northam (pictured) signed historic legislation making Virginia the 23rd U.…
