The Death Penalty in 2003: Year End Report

The death penal­ty con­tin­ued its recent attri­tion in 2003, with exe­cu­tions, death sen­tences, and the death row pop­u­la­tion all low­er than a few years ago. Public sup­port for the death penal­ty dropped to its low­est lev­el in 25 years. At the same time, exon­er­a­tions from death row helped spur leg­isla­tive reforms in the cap­i­tal punishment system. 

The use of the death penal­ty declined by a vari­ety of measures:

• EXECUTIONS: The num­ber of exe­cu­tions dropped by 8% from 71 last year to 65 this year. Executions are down 34% when com­pared to 98 exe­cu­tions in 1999.
• DEATH ROW: The size of death row is small­er than it was a year ago by 5%. As of October 1 of this year, the num­ber of inmates on death row stood at 3,504. A year before the count was 3,697. The size of death row had been increas­ing steadi­ly after the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976, but the num­bers have declined since 2001. 
• DEATH SENTENCES: The num­ber of new death sen­tences is also declin­ing, though the num­bers for 2003 are still pre­lim­i­nary. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report­ed in November of this year that the num­ber of death sen­tences for 2002 was 159, mark­ing the fourth straight year of decline in death sen­tenc­ing. DPIC’s assess­ment of death sen­tences for 2003 (based on data through Oct. 1) projects that the num­ber of death sen­tences will be approx­i­mate­ly 139, con­tin­u­ing the down­ward trend. The con­trast is more pro­nounced (near­ly a 50% drop) when com­pared to death sen­tences in the late 1990s, which aver­aged about 300 per year. 
• REGIONALIZATION: The prac­tice of the death penal­ty became more iso­lat­ed in 2003. Only three states out­side of the south con­duct­ed exe­cu­tions in 2003: Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio. Three states in the south, Texas, Oklahoma and North Carolina, account­ed for 69% of the exe­cu­tions in 2003. All togeth­er, the south was respon­si­ble for 89% of the exe­cu­tions this year. Only 11 states car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 2003, the fewest states in a decade. Two of the five states with the largest death rows had no exe­cu­tions in 2003: California and Pennsylvania. 
• RACE: As has been the case for many years, those exe­cut­ed were almost exclu­sive­ly guilty of mur­der­ing a white vic­tim — only 18% of those exe­cut­ed were con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a black per­son – despite the fact that blacks are vic­tims in about 50% of mur­ders in the U.S. In 2003, no white per­son was exe­cut­ed exclu­sive­ly for the mur­der of a black person. 
• INNOCENCE: In one area relat­ed to the death penal­ty, how­ev­er, the num­bers reached a high­point since its rein­state­ment: ten peo­ple were exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row in 2003, equal­ing the most exon­er­a­tions in a sin­gle year since states began enact­ing new death penal­ty laws in 1973, and more than twice as many as last year. More cas­es are under­go­ing final review and may soon result in addi­tion­al exon­er­a­tions in Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina and other states. 
• PUBLIC OPINION: Public sup­port for the death penal­ty as mea­sured by the Gallup Poll reached its low­est lev­el in 25 years. Support dropped from 70% one year ago in October to 64% in October of this year, despite the media focus on the tri­als of two men accused of ser­i­al killings in Virginia and Maryland and con­tin­u­ing con­cern about ter­ror­ism. The last time sup­port for the death penal­ty was low­er was in 1978 when it measured 62%.