The Death Penalty in 1999: Year End Report

The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the U.S. in 1999 was the high­est for any year since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. There were 98 exe­cu­tions, one-third of them in Texas. This 44% increase in exe­cu­tions from last year is part­ly the result of a large num­ber of old­er cas­es fac­ing an expe­dit­ed fed­er­al and state appeals process. 

At the same time, the num­ber of inno­cent peo­ple freed from death row also grew in 1999, with 8 more peo­ple released. The num­ber of inmates exon­er­at­ed since 1973 has now reached a total of 84. Most notable among such cas­es this year was that of Anthony Porter in Illinois, who came with­in hours of exe­cu­tion and was for­tu­itous­ly freed through the work of a Northwestern University jour­nal­ism class. Another man has con­fessed and been con­vict­ed of the crime for which Porter was to die. 

Such mis­takes in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty have result­ed in pro­pos­als from state leg­is­la­tors, judges, and reli­gious and inter­na­tion­al lead­ers to impose a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty. Legislation to reform or stop the death penal­ty pro­gressed fur­ther than at any time in recent years. A Gallup Poll in February record­ed the low­est sup­port for the death penal­ty in 13 years.

The racial break­down of the 98 cas­es result­ing in exe­cu­tion this year is as follows:

The race of vic­tim break­down con­tin­ues a trend since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed of pre­dom­i­nance by white vic­tim cas­es. Despite the fact that nation­al­ly whites and blacks are vic­tims of mur­der in approx­i­mate­ly equal num­bers, 83% of the vic­tims in cas­es result­ing in exe­cu­tions have been white. Since this dis­par­i­ty is con­firmed even in stud­ies which con­trol for sim­i­lar crimes by defen­dants with sim­i­lar back­grounds, it implies that white vic­tims are con­sid­ered more impor­tant in the crim­i­nal justice system.

Almost all the exe­cu­tions this year were by lethal injec­tion. Following a series of botched exe­cu­tions in Florida, cul­mi­nat­ing in the bloody elec­tro­cu­tion of Allen Davis in July, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Florida’s elec­tric chair. The case, Bryan v. Moore, is sched­uled to be argued on February 28, although Florida may ren­der the case moot by amend­ing its method of exe­cu­tion in the mean­time. Only four states main­tain the elec­tric chair as their sole means of exe­cu­tion: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Nebraska. The oth­er 34 states with the death penal­ty have lethal injec­tion either as their sole method or as an option for the defendant.

Methods Used in 1999
Lethal injec­tion — 94
Electrocution — 3
Lethal gas — 1

Perhaps reflect­ing a grow­ing con­cern about the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty in the U.S., five gov­er­nors grant­ed clemen­cy in five cap­i­tal cas­es this year. The aver­age num­ber of clemen­cies dur­ing the past 5 years was one per year: 

One juve­nile offend­er, Sean Sellers, who was 16 at the time of his crime, was exe­cut­ed in Oklahoma this year. However, three such exe­cu­tions are sched­uled for the first month of 2000 in Virginia and Texas. Twelve of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed this year waived their appeals. Five of those exe­cut­ed this year were cit­i­zens of oth­er coun­tries: two from Germany, one from Canada, one from Thailand, and one from the Philippines. Most of these defen­dants chal­lenged the fact that they had not been informed of their rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright apol­o­gized for the U.S.‘s fail­ure to abide by this treaty, and the International Court of Justice attempt­ed to inter­vene, but no exe­cu­tions were halted.

January Pope John Paul II vis­it­ed St. Louis, Missouri and called for an end to the death penal­ty in front of hun­dreds of thou­sands of fol­low­ers. Gov. Mel Carnahan grant­ed clemen­cy to Darrell Mease, who had been sched­uled for exe­cu­tion dur­ing the Pope’s visit. 

February Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Sean Sellers, who was 16 at the time he mur­dered his par­ents. This marked the first time in 40 years that such a young offend­er was exe­cut­ed in the U.S. Criticism and calls for clemen­cy came from around the world, includ­ing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the American Bar Association, and Amnesty International. 

March Germany protest­ed the exe­cu­tion in Arizona of two of its cit­i­zens, Karl and Walter LaGrand. Germany filed suit in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, not­ing that the broth­ers had not been informed of their rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. That Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that Walter LaGrand’s exe­cu­tion should be stayed, but the U.S. Supreme Court refused to inter­vene. Germany’s suit against the U.S. con­tin­ues, as the ICJ address­es the treaty vio­la­tion and the appropriate remedy. 

April The United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions, and a com­plete ban on the death penal­ty for juve­nile offend­ers and those with severe men­tal ill­ness. The U.S. opposed the res­o­lu­tion, along with such coun­tries as China, Rwanda and Sudan. This year’s res­o­lu­tion was sim­i­lar to one passed last year, but it was spon­sored by the European Union, which has assumed a more active role in oppos­ing the death penalty. 

May Nebraska’s leg­is­la­ture became the first to vote for a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions which Gov. Johanns then vetoed. However, the leg­is­la­ture also unan­i­mous­ly passed, over the gov­er­nor’s veto, a bill fund­ing an exten­sive study of the fair­ness of the death penal­ty in Nebraska. It is unlike­ly that any exe­cu­tions will occur while this study is in progress. In California, a high­ly dec­o­rat­ed Vietnam Veteran, Manuel Babbitt, who was suf­fer­ing from post-trau­mat­ic stress syn­drome at the time of his offense, was exe­cut­ed despite pleas for clemen­cy from his fellow Marines. 

June Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 716 inmates on Russia’s death row, there­by mov­ing that coun­try clos­er to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty. Russia has applied for admis­sion to the Council of Europe, which requires its mem­bers to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Many oth­er coun­tries of the for­mer Soviet bloc have also aban­doned capital punishment. 

July Blood poured from the face of Allen Lee Davis as he was being exe­cut­ed in Florida’s elec­tric chair. Pictures of Davis imme­di­ate­ly after his exe­cu­tion showed a shirt cov­ered with blood, a large tight col­lar around his neck, and a trau­ma­tized face. The Florida Supreme Court even­tu­al­ly upheld the chair’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty on a vote of 4 – 3. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a chal­lenge to Florida’s method of exe­cu­tion, which will be heard in February, unless Florida changes its method in the meantime. 

August Articles such as the New York Times’s The Alumni of Death Row, fea­tur­ing pic­tures and accounts of the inmates freed from death row in the 1990s, and the Chicago Tribune’s ear­li­er series on the death sen­tences over­turned in Illinois, prompt­ed broad pub­lic con­cern about the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In Illinois, the major­i­ty of cit­i­zens sup­port­ed a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty. An Ohio State University poll found that the two-thirds of the state’s cit­i­zens believed that a mis­tak­en exe­cu­tion was like­ly. A Missouri poll found that 56% of respon­dents sup­port­ed a mora­to­ri­um to study the fair­ness of the death penalty. 

September The 100^th exe­cu­tion in Texas under the admin­is­tra­tion of Gov. George W. Bush took place. Texas leads the coun­try with the most exe­cu­tions this year (35) and accounts for one-third of all exe­cu­tions in the coun­try since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed (199 out of 598). No oth­er state or gov­er­nor in recent times comes close to this num­ber of exe­cu­tions. Virginia has had the sec­ond largest num­ber of exe­cu­tions since rein­state­ment, 73, includ­ing 14 this year. As a per­cent­age of its pop­u­la­tion and as a per­cent­age of its death row, Virginia exe­cutes inmates at a high­er rate than Texas. 

October An inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence on a mora­to­ri­um of the death penal­ty was held at Columbia University. The Death Penalty Information Center released its report, International Perspectives on the Death Penalty: A Costly Isolation for the U.S., cat­a­loging the ways in which the U.S. has sep­a­rat­ed itself from its allies with its insis­tence on expand­ing the death penal­ty, and on exe­cut­ing juve­niles, the men­tal­ly retard­ed, and those denied their rights under international treaties. 

November Alfred Rivera was acquit­ted after a re-tri­al in North Carolina and freed from death row, becom­ing the 84^th per­son since 1973 exon­er­at­ed after being sen­tenced to death. In New Mexico, a group of reli­gious lead­ers filed suit protest­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against peo­ple who are reject­ed from serv­ing on cap­i­tal juries if their faith pre­vents them from sup­port­ing the death penalty. 

December Wendell Flowers’s death sen­tence was com­mut­ed in North Carolina, mark­ing the 5^th clemen­cy in the U.S. this year. One of the last exe­cu­tions of the year was that of David Long in Texas. Long had to be flown from a hos­pi­tal in Galveston accom­pa­nied by med­ical per­son­nel. He had been rushed to the hos­pi­tal and placed on life sup­port fol­low­ing a suicide attempt.

Despite the record num­ber of exe­cu­tions this year, many promi­nent lead­ers from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum raised objec­tions to the death penal­ty. Among those voices were: 

• Pope John Paul II, speak­ing in Missouri, called for an end to the death penal­ty: ​“I renew the appeal I made most recent­ly at Christmas for a con­sen­sus to end the death penal­ty, which is both cru­el and unnec­es­sary. A sign of hope is the increas­ing recog­ni­tion that the dig­ni­ty of human life must nev­er be tak­en away, even in the case of some­one who has done great evil.Ó (Reuters, Jan. 27, 1999). 
• Justice Paul Pfeifer of the Ohio Supreme Court, who for­mer­ly was one of the authors of the state’s death penal­ty law, ques­tioned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as Ohio car­ried out its first exe­cu­tion since the rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty: (Wilford Berry, who refused all efforts to appeal his case, was exe­cut­ed on February 19, despite sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions about his men­tal com­pe­tence.) ​“As we stand poised on his­to­ry’s doorstep, I find myself won­der­ing if it’s a step that we real­ly want to take. Should the state be in the busi­ness of end­ing peo­ple’s lives, no mat­ter how rep­re­hen­si­ble those peo­ple are?” He added that he want­ed to dis­tance him­self from Ohio’s law: ​“Knowing what I know now, my name would­n’t have been on it.” (Akron Beacon Journal, Feb. 18, 1999) 
• Julie Dorf, Executive Director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, spoke as one rep­re­sen­ta­tive of eleven major orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing gay and les­bian peo­ple which opposed the death penal­ty in the wake of the beat­ing and mur­der of a gay stu­dent, Matthew Shepard, in Wyoming: ​“Human rights are not a euphemism for gay rights. We can­not pick and choose human rights. The death penal­ty is wrong in all cas­es.” (Press release, Feb. 10, 1999) 
• Ronald Dworkin, pro­fes­sor of jurispru­dence at Oxford University and pro­fes­sor of law and phi­los­o­phy at New York University, wrote: ​“The Supreme Court has become impa­tient, and ​‘super due process’ has turned into ​‘due process-lite.’ Its impa­tience is under­stand­able, but it is also unac­cept­able. If Americans insist on the death penal­ty, they must accept the moral con­se­quences of their choice. Judges must lis­ten, with painstak­ing and patient atten­tion, to every argu­ment for life that is not plain­ly friv­o­lous. If they find any actu­al mis­take in the process that has con­demned a human being to death, they must repeat that process and give him anoth­er chance for life. These are inescapable moral demands. What if we can­not meet these demands? What if we can­not tol­er­ate all the stays and appeals and retri­als that a decent respect for human life requires with­out mak­ing the law seem fool­ish and with­out sub­vert­ing the point of a death sen­tence? Then we must aban­don cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, even if we think it right in prin­ci­ple, because then we can­not have it, even if it is right, with­out cheat­ing.” (Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1999). 
• Justice Harry Lee Anstead dis­sent­ed from the Florida Supreme Court’s uphold­ing of the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s elec­tric chair by a 4 – 3 vote, despite a series of sev­er­al botched exe­cu­tions: ​“Our jus­tice sys­tem is not sim­ply an instru­ment of vengeance, despite the con­no­ta­tion to that effect con­tained in the extreme rhetoric that some­times sur­rounds the con­sti­tu­tion­al debate over con­tin­u­ing use of the elec­tric chair.” (St. Petersburg Times, Sept. 26, 1999) 
• Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote: ​“More than half of the nations of the world have abol­ished the death penal­ty in law or in prac­tice, and I wel­come the fact that more and more coun­tries are join­ing this trend, by either restrict­ing the num­ber of offens­es pun­ish­able by death or abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty alto­geth­er. At the same time, I deeply regret that in the last years a num­ber of states have increased the use of the death penal­ty or resumed exe­cu­tions after a peri­od of de fac­to mora­to­ri­um. While work­ing towards the ulti­mate goal Ñ a uni­ver­sal ban on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment we must also ensure that the exist­ing lim­i­ta­tions and restric­tions on the use of the death penal­ty are ful­ly respect­ed by those who still retain this prac­tice.” (Message to Press Conference, Death Penalty Information Center, New York, Oct. 12, 1999) 
• National Catholic and Jewish lead­ers issued a joint state­ment call­ing for an end to the death penal­ty. The National Council of Synagogues and the ecu­meni­cal com­mit­tee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops com­mit­ted them­selves to work­ing togeth­er and with­in their own com­mu­ni­ties to abol­ish the death penal­ty: ​“We oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment not just for what it does to those guilty of hor­ri­ble crimes, but for what it does to all of us as a soci­ety. Increasing reliance on the death penal­ty dimin­ish­es all of us and is a sign of grow­ing dis­re­spect for human life. We can­not over­come crime by sim­ply exe­cut­ing crim­i­nals, nor can we restore the lives of the inno­cent by end­ing the lives of those con­vict­ed of their mur­ders. The death penal­ty offers the trag­ic illu­sion that we can defend life by tak­ing life.” (A Report of the National Jewish/​Catholic Consultation, Dec. 6, 1999). 
• Newspapers around the coun­try edi­to­ri­al­ized elo­quent­ly for a recon­sid­er­a­tion of the death penal­ty, espe­cial­ly in response to the numer­ous inno­cent peo­ple dis­cov­ered on death row. One exam­ple was a recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette: ​“This is a sta­tis­tic too fright­en­ing to con­tem­plate: Since the mod­ern death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in the United States in the 1970s, 79 peo­ple [now 84] have been released from death row — because they were found to be inno­cent. In one recent case, a man fac­ing death was absolved at the 11^th hour not by the judi­cial process, but by a class of jour­nal­ism stu­dents. So the hor­ri­fy­ing ques­tion goes unasked: Of the close to 600 peo­ple who have been killed since 1976 by states across America, how many of them were inno­cent? Ask your­self: How many would be too many? One? Five? Ten? Twenty?” (Nov. 23, 1999). 
• U.S. Senator Russell Feingold (D‑WI) intro­duced the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 1999 on November 11. The bill would end exe­cu­tions and for­bid death sen­tences for vio­la­tions of fed­er­al law. In intro­duc­ing the bill, Feingold said: ​“I ask my col­leagues to join me in tak­ing the first step in abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty in our great nation. Today, I intro­duce a bill that abol­ish­es the death penal­ty at the fed­er­al lev­el. I call on all states that have the death penal­ty to also cease this prac­tice. Let us step away from the cul­ture of vio­lence and restore fair­ness and integri­ty to our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. I close with this reminder to my col­leagues. Where would our nation be if mem­bers of Congress were fol­low­ers, not lead­ers, of pub­lic opin­ion? We, of course, would still be liv­ing with slav­ery, seg­re­ga­tion and with­out a wom­an’s right to vote. Like abol­ish­ing slav­ery and seg­re­ga­tion and estab­lish­ing a wom­an’s right to vote, abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty will not be an easy task. It will take patience, per­sis­tence and courage. As we head into the next mil­len­ni­um, let us leave this archa­ic practice behind.” 
• Former Florida Chief Justice Gerald Kogan, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor, recent­ly spoke about inno­cence and the death penal­ty: “[T]here is no ques­tion in my mind, and I can tell you this hav­ing seen the dynam­ics of our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem over the many years that I have been asso­ci­at­ed with it, pros­e­cu­tor, defense attor­ney, tri­al judge and Supreme Court Justice, that con­vinces me that we cer­tain­ly have, in the past, exe­cut­ed those peo­ple who either did­n’t fit the cri­te­ria for exe­cu­tion in the State of Florida or who, in fact, were, fac­tu­al­ly, not guilty of the crime for which they have been exe­cut­ed.… [Y]ou have to ask your­self, how many per­sons did we exe­cute pri­or to the arrival of DNA evi­dence who would have been released, had we had that tool work­ing for us 25, 30, 40, 50 years ago?” (Speech in Orlando, Fl., Oct. 23, 1999) 

For the first time in many years, leg­is­la­tors have begun to take seri­ous­ly the need to either reform or halt the death penal­ty. Religious and human rights lead­ers inten­si­fied their call for aban­don­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Former pros­e­cu­tors, judges and those most famil­iar with the death penal­ty in prac­tice have begun speak­ing from their expe­ri­ence about the fail­ure of the death penal­ty exper­i­ment. The cas­es of inno­cent defen­dants, often spared with only hours to exe­cu­tion, spoke most force­ful­ly of the need for a rad­i­cal recon­sid­er­a­tion of this pun­ish­ment. As con­cern about abus­es rose, pop­u­lar sup­port for the death penalty dropped. 

Although the momen­tum of the death penal­ty is car­ry­ing it to a record num­ber of exe­cu­tions, the prob­lems of race, mis­takes, inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion and oth­er injus­tices con­tin­ue to plague its admin­is­tra­tion. The first year of the new mil­len­ni­um may find the death penal­ty being chal­lenged even more force­ful­ly, although exe­cu­tions will cer­tain­ly con­tin­ue. Some issues may come to a head, with exe­cu­tions of juve­nile offend­ers and the men­tal­ly retard­ed sched­uled ear­ly in the year. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to con­sid­er the his­toric ques­tion of whether the death penal­ty, at least in some instances, con­sti­tutes cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Thus, it appears that the future of the death penal­ty may depend on whether it can ever be applied in a fair and accurate manner.