The Death Penalty Information Center’s 2003 Year End Report fea­tures a series of sig­nif­i­cant death penal­ty devel­op­ments from the past year, including: 

  • The num­ber of exe­cu­tions dropped by 8% from 71 in 2002 to 65 in 2003.
  • After steady increas­es from 1976 to 2000, the size of death row has decreased. In 2003, the num­ber of death row inmates declined by 5%, the third decrease in as many years.
  • The num­ber of peo­ple sen­tenced to death also con­tin­ued to decline in 2003, down from 159 in 2002 to a pro­ject­ed 139 in 2003. This is about a 50% drop from the high num­ber of death sen­tences in the late 1990s of approx­i­mate­ly 300 per year.
  • The South was respon­si­ble for 89% of the exe­cu­tions in 2003. Eleven states, but only three out­side of the South, con­duct­ed exe­cu­tions in 2003, the fewest states in a decade.
  • Ten indi­vid­u­als were exon­er­at­ed from death row in 2003, tying the record for the most exon­er­a­tions in a single year.
  • Public sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment reached its low­est lev­el in 25 years. An October 2003 Gallup Poll found 64% of respon­dents sup­port­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, down from 70% in 2002.

The 2003 Year End Report has been fea­tured on National Public Radio, and in pub­li­ca­tions such as The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Law​.com, Bet​.com, and var­i­ous newswires. In a lead edi­to­r­i­al about these death penal­ty devel­op­ments, The Washington Post noted: 

This year saw some sig­nif­i­cant break­throughs in efforts to reform the death penal­ty, a move­ment that has been dri­ven by the flood of wrong­ly con­vict­ed peo­ple freed from death row.
…
Capital pun­ish­ment in America will not dis­ap­pear all of a sud­den. But if seri­ous reform efforts con­tin­ue and the penal­ty becomes ever more region­al in its appli­ca­tion, it could begin to fade away. (Washington Post, December 28, 2003)


Read DPIC’s 2003 Year End Report. Read DPIC’s Press Release.

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