The Death Penalty in 2002: Year End Report

In 2002, the death penal­ty con­tin­ued to come under increas­ing scruti­ny and its use became more geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed with­in the United States. Executions occurred almost exclu­sive­ly in the South, and one state, Texas, account­ed for three times as many as the total in the West, Midwest, and Northeast states combined. 

Most states did not car­ry out any exe­cu­tions in 2002. Only 13 states used the ulti­mate sanc­tion this year. The last time few­er states car­ried out exe­cu­tions was 1993. As in almost every year since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976, the South led the U.S. in exe­cu­tions by a wide mar­gin, account­ing for 86% of all exe­cu­tions. Outside the South, only Missouri, Ohio, and California con­duct­ed an execution. 

Texas car­ried out 33 exe­cu­tions this year, near­ly half of the coun­try’s total exe­cu­tions (71) and near­ly 5 times as many as Oklahoma, the next lead­ing state with 7. For the sec­ond straight year, Texas was the only state to exe­cute juve­nile offend­ers. Despite inter­na­tion­al protests, the state exe­cut­ed 3 inmates who were under 18 at the time of their offense, all of whom were black. Of the 21 juve­nile offend­ers exe­cut­ed in the U.S. since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed, 13 (62%) have been in Texas.

There were oth­er indi­ca­tions of the declin­ing use and increas­ing skep­ti­cism about the death penal­ty: new death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions remained at a low­er lev­el com­pared to the late 1990s, and the size of death row declined after years of increas­es. Public opin­ion (see sep­a­rate sec­tion below) remained divid­ed on whether the death penal­ty or a sen­tence of life with­out parole was the most appro­pri­ate sen­tence for first degree mur­der. Support for the death penal­ty is low­er than the sup­port reg­is­tered in the ear­ly 1990s, despite the ter­ror­ist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the recent sniper shoot­ings in the Washington, DC area.