The Bureau of Justice Statistics has just released the 2005 version of its annual report on the death penalty in the U.S. The report notes that both the number of death sentences and the size of death row were down for 2005, and that this represents a trend over the past 5 years. The report states that there were 60 executions in 2005, all by lethal injection, and that the time between sentencing and execution was longer in 2005 than in 2004.


California had the most death sentences (23) in 2005, followed by Florida (15), Texas (14) and Alabama (12). Together these states accounted for half of those sentenced to death in 2005. California had the largest number on death row (646) and Texas had the most executions (19) in 2005.

(U.S. Dept. of Justice, Capital Punishment, 2005 (pub. December 2006)). See also DPIC’s 2005 Year End Report. DPIC will be releasing its 2006 Year End Report by the end of this week, and it will have information on the death penalty in 2006. See Sentencing.

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