2018 Death Sentences by Name, Race, and County

2018 Death Sentences by Name, Race, and County

43* new death sen­tences were imposed in the U.S. in 2018, the fourth-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. 

Court rul­ings allow­ing impaired defen­dants to waive crit­i­cal tri­al rights and death sen­tenc­ing of indi­vid­u­als with obvi­ous impair­ments raised con­cerns as to whether the sen­tences were reserved for ​“the worst of the worst” offend­ers or were being imposed upon the most vul­ner­a­ble defen­dants in the most unre­li­able tri­al and sentencing proceedings.

Although cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing deci­sions are sup­posed to reflect the con­science of the com­mu­ni­ty, a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of death sen­tences in 2018 were imposed with­out the unan­i­mous agree­ment of death-penal­ty jurors that death was appro­pri­ate. One of every sev­en death sen­tences was imposed by a judge with­out a unan­i­mous jury vote, and often after defen­dants were deemed to have waived cru­cial trial rights.

*NOTE: Updated on July 11, 2019 to reflect the dis­cov­ery of a new death sen­tence in Nevada.

Defendants Sentenced to Death in 2018

2018 Death Sentences by Race of Defendant

2018 Death Sentences by County

2018 Death Sentences by State

Related Links

• DPIC’s 2018 Year End Report
• Download 2018 Sentencing Data as a Microsoft Excel file