
DPIC Report: The 2% Death Penalty
How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All

DPIC Page: Ring v. Arizona
Supreme Court Declares Defendants Have a Right to Jury Determination of Eligibility for Death Sentence
Overview
The number of annual executions in the U.S. does not necessarily reflect the current public mood about the death penalty because executions typically occur fifteen or more years after a death sentence has been handed down. The number of executions is also affected by reversals on appeal and clemencies granted. Death sentences, on the other hand, are a timely measure of prosecutors’ decisions to seek death and juries’ unanimous votes to impose it.
However, it is also difficult to discern public sentiment on the death penalty from the number of death sentences. These sentences vary greatly among the states, even when measured on a per capita basis. Moreover, the sentences are often clustered in particular counties within a state. Counties with the highest number of murders do not always produce the most death sentences. Nevertheless, it is relevant that the national annual number of death sentences has declined by over 80 percent during the past 25 years.
At Issue
One might expect that the number of death sentences would be directly proportional to the number of murders committed in a jurisdiction, but that is not often the case. For example, the number of death sentences in the U.S. has plummeted since 2000 while the country’s murder rate has remained fairly stable. The local use of the death penalty is strongly affected by the views of the county’s district attorney, by racial factors, and by the financial resources available in particular jurisdictions.
What DPIC Offers
Statistics are available on the number of death sentences by jurisdiction and year. Recent data include racial information on sentences. Death sentences can be easily compared to the murder rates for various jurisdictions and time periods.
For more information about state-by-state sentencing procedures, see DPIC’s pages on Ring v. Arizona and Sentencing Alternatives.
News & Developments
News
Mar 07, 2019
Study Reports More Than Three-Fold Drop in Pursuit of Death Penalty by Pennsylvania Prosecutors

A new study of fourteen years of Pennsylvania murder convictions has documented a sharp decline in county prosecutors’ use of capital punishment across the Commonwealth. After examining the court files of 4,184 murder convictions from 2004 to 2017, the Allentown Morning Call found that Pennsylvania prosecutors sought the death penalty at more than triple the rate (3.3) at the start of the study period than they did fourteen years later — a drop of more than 70%. In 2004, the paper reported, prosecutors sought the death penalty in 123 of…
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Sep 13, 2023
When Jurors Do Not Agree, Should a Death Sentence Be Imposed?
In most states, a death sentence may only be imposed by a jury in unanimous agreement. But in two recent cases, defendants faced the possibility of a death sentence despite the objections of jurors.
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Jul 26, 2023
NEW RESOURCES: Capital Punishment and the State of Criminal Justice 2023
The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has announced its forthcoming annual report, The State of Criminal Justice 2023, examining the state of the American criminal legal system.
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Jul 21, 2023
Texas Jury Sentences ex-USBP Agent Who Committed Two Murders to Life Without Parole Instead of Death
On July 18, 2023, after about nine hours of deliberation, a Texas jury sentenced former Supervisory United States Border Patrol agent Ronald Anthony Burgos-Aviles, age 34, to life without parole (LWOP) instead of death for the 2018 double murder of Grizelda Hernandez, age 27, and their son Dominic Alexander, age 1. This sentencing verdict occurred in a high-use death penalty state; Texas has carried out the greatest number of executions, at 583, of any state since 1976. But over the last two decades, the number of new death sentences in Texas…
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Mar 22, 2023
Federal Government Announces Withdrawal of Intent to Seek Death in North Dakota Case
On March 14, 2023, at the direction of Attorney General Merrick Garland (pictured), the U.S. Attorney for the District of North Dakota withdrew the notice of intent to seek a death sentence for Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., who had been convicted in 2006 of the 2003 kidnapping and killing of college student Dru Sjodin. Rodriguez had originally been sentenced to death in 2007, but U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Erickson reversed the death sentence because of misleading testimony presented at trial from the coroner and failures of defense counsel to explore…
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Mar 15, 2023
From The Marshall Project: “The Mercy Workers” —The Unique Role of Mitigation Specialists in Death Penalty Cases
During the sentencing phase of capital cases, sympathetic evidence about the life of the defendant is typically presented to jurors, who then must decide whether such mitigating factors merit sparing his or her life. Mitigation specialists play a crucial role in collecting such evidence. They document “the traumas, policy failures, family dynamics and individual choices that shape the lives of people who kill.” According to an article from The Marshall Project, there are fewer than 1,000 mitigations specialists nationwide, yet they’ve “helped drive down death sentences from more than 300…
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Mar 01, 2023
RESEARCH: History of Lynchings Linked to Increased Death Sentencing for Black Defendants
Researchers based at the University of North Carolina found a strong statistical relationship between the level of racial resentment in a state and the number of death sentences handed down on Black people. In particular, racial resentment was a stronger predictor of Black death sentencing rates than conservative ideology, even when controlling for several factors such as homicide and violent crime rates. Writing in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, the authors noted: “[W]e find that racial hostility translates directly into more death sentences, particularly for Black offenders.”
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Feb 10, 2023
STUDIES: Raising the Age of Those Eligible for the Death Penalty Would Likely Reduce Racial Disparities
Professor Craig Haney (pictured) of the University of California, Santa Cruz, Professor Frank Baumgartner of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Karen Steele, a criminal defense attorney in Oregon, examined age and race data from nearly 9,000 death sentences imposed in the U.S. from 1972 to 2021. They found that the racial disparities that plague the death penalty were more pronounced in cases involving juvenile and late adolescent defendants. Building on the findings of a 2022 study by Baumgartner, the authors found that, “Late adolescent class members…
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Dec 16, 2022
DPIC 2022 Year End Report: Commutation of Oregon Death Row Headlines U.S. Death-Penalty Decline in a Year Marred by Botched Executions
The death penalty continued its long-term decline in the U.S. in 2022, as Oregon commuted its death row and new death sentences and public support for the death penalty remained near 50-year lows. But perhaps more dramatically than anything else, the fortieth anniversary of lethal injection could be known as “the Year of the Botched Execution,” the Death Penalty Information Center said in its 2022 Year End Report.
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Sep 14, 2022
BOOKS: “Geometrical Justice: The Death Penalty in America”
The outcome of a capital prosecution can be predicted based upon the relative social status of the victim, the defendant, and the jurors, applying a sociology concept known as the geometrical theory of law, according to the authors of a new book, Geometrical Justice: The Death Penalty in America.
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Sep 12, 2022
As the Lone Star State Conducts 400th White-Victim Execution, Study Shows Black Lives Matter Less in Texas Capital Cases
A new study of the Texas death penalty, released as the state was conducting its 400th modern-era execution in a case involving a white victim, has documented overwhelming racial disparities in the Lone Star state’s capital punishment system.
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