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.