NEW RESOURCES: State Graphs Showing the Decline in Death Sentences

Since the 1990s, almost every death penal­ty state has expe­ri­enced a dra­mat­ic decline in its annu­al num­ber of death sen­tences. DPIC has pre­pared a series of graphs illus­trat­ing this trend in each state: State Death Sentences by Year. This page con­tains graphs show­ing the annu­al num­ber of new sen­tences in each state between 1994 and 2012. These same graphs can be found indi­vid­u­al­ly on each state’s State Information page. Nationally, there was a 75% decrease in new death sen­tences between 1994 and 2012. Using the same years of com­par­i­son, death sen­tences in Texas and Virginia (the two lead­ing states in exe­cu­tions since 1976) have shown a sim­i­lar decline. Between 1994 and 2012, Texas death sen­tences declined by 79%; Virginia death sen­tences dropped to 0 in 2012, a 100% decline from 1994, when there were 10. In the same time peri­od, Alabama sen­tences dropped 75%, Florida-44%, Oklahoma-92%, and California-41%.

(State Death Sentences by Year, DPIC post­ed, April 2, 2013). See Sentencing and States. Read more about the lat­est death penal­ty trends in DPIC’s 2012 Year End Report.