DPIC MID-YEAR REVIEW: At Midpoint of 2019, Death Penalty Use Remains Near Historic Lows

At the mid­point of 2019, death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions remain near his­toric lows in the United States, with exe­cu­tions and pend­ing exe­cu­tion dates con­cen­trat­ed heav­i­ly in a few south­ern states. The year’s exe­cu­tions and new death sen­tences have dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly involved defen­dants or pris­on­ers with men­tal ill­ness, brain dam­age, and/​or severe child­hood trau­ma, and those with inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion. New Hampshire became the 21^st state to abol­ish the death penal­ty, and California’s gov­er­nor imposed a mora­to­ri­um, remov­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cu­tion for every­one on the nation’s largest death row. With those actions, for the first time since the 1970s, a major­i­ty of Americans now live in states that either have abol­ished the death penal­ty or have imposed a for­mal mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. Two more inno­cent men who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death – Clifford Williams Jr. and Charles Ray Finch – were exon­er­at­ed, the nation’s 165^th and 166^th death-row exon­er­a­tions since 1973. Both exon­er­a­tions occurred more than four decades after the wrongful convictions. 

Six months into 2019, it appears that, for the fifth con­sec­u­tive year, there will be few­er than 50 new death sen­tences and few­er than 30 exe­cu­tions. The Death Penalty Information Center has doc­u­ment­ed 14 new death sen­tences for­mal­ly imposed in the first half of 2019, with eight oth­er jury rec­om­men­da­tions for death await­ing final judi­cial action. At this point in 2018, 27 new death sen­tences had been for­mal­ly imposed. Nine states, six of them in the South, have for­mal­ly imposed new death sen­tences, but to date no state has imposed more than two. No coun­ty has imposed more than one new death sentence. 

Among those sen­tenced to death are two defen­dants who waived their right to a jury tri­al, two who rep­re­sent­ed them­selves, and one who was sen­tenced to death based upon a non-unan­i­mous (10 – 2) jury rec­om­men­da­tion in Alabama, the only state that allows such sen­tences. One defen­dant, Tiffany Moss in Georgia, has brain dam­age that impairs the por­tion of her brain respon­si­ble for impulse con­trol, exec­u­tive func­tion, and deci­sion-mak­ing. Nonetheless, the tri­al judge allowed her to rep­re­sent her­self at tri­al, where she pre­sent­ed no defense. She became the first per­son sen­tenced to death in Georgia since 2014. The new death sen­tences show con­tin­u­ing race-of-vic­tim dis­par­i­ties, with death sen­tences dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly imposed in cas­es involv­ing white vic­tims: 10 of the 14 cas­es involved only white vic­tims, and two oth­ers involved white vic­tims along with vic­tims of other races.

The ten exe­cu­tions car­ried out in the first half of 2019 have been high­ly geo­graph­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ed. All ten were in south­ern states, and more than half (60%) were in Texas and Alabama. Nine of the ten (90%) had evi­dence of at least one of the fol­low­ing impair­ments: brain injury, brain dam­age, or an IQ in the intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled range; seri­ous men­tal ill­ness; or chron­ic abuse and trau­ma. Three (30%) were younger than age 20 at the time of the offense for which they were exe­cut­ed. Of the 52 exe­cu­tion dates that have been set this year, 44% (23) have been stayed, reprieved, resched­uled, with­drawn, or ren­dered moot because the pris­on­er died on death row. Nineteen death war­rants — more than one-third (37%) — are still pend­ing. Nine of those war­rants are in Texas. Four oth­ers are in Ohio, where Governor Mike DeWine has sus­pend­ed exe­cu­tions based upon con­cerns that the state’s cur­rent lethal-injec­tion method is unnecessarily torturous.

Major activ­i­ties at the state lev­el show the con­tin­u­ing decline in the death penal­ty. Death-penal­ty repeal bills were pro­posed in 17 state leg­is­la­tures. New Hampshire became the 21^st state to abol­ish the death penal­ty when its leg­is­la­ture over­rode the governor’s veto of the repeal bill. It was the last state in New England to autho­rize the death penal­ty. The Oregon leg­is­la­ture, which can­not abol­ish the death penal­ty because it was put in place by a vot­er ref­er­en­dum, passed a bill to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the num­ber of crimes pun­ish­able by death. The bill is await­ing action by the gov­er­nor. Chambers in three states— Ohio, Texas, and Virginia— passed bills to elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. The Virginia bill died in the House of Delegates and the Texas bill died in the Senate when nei­ther vot­ed on the bills before their leg­isla­tive ses­sions end­ed. The Ohio bill passed over­whelm­ing­ly in the House and is cur­rent­ly pend­ing in the Senate. Governor Gavin Newsom of California took the sig­nif­i­cant step of impos­ing a mora­to­ri­um in his state, which has more death-row pris­on­ers than any other state.