The Death Penalty in 2012: Year End Report

DEATH SENTENCES IN 2012 REMAIN NEAR HISTORIC LOW

Key Southern States Had No Death Sentences or No Executions, According to New Report

Number of Death Penalty States Drops with Connecticut’s Repeal

(Washington, D.C.) Only nine states car­ried out exe­cu­tions this year, equal­ing the fewest num­ber of states to do so in 20 years, accord­ing to a new report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). More than half of the states (29) either have no death penal­ty or have not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in five years. The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in 2012 (43) was 56 per­cent less than the peak in 1999 and equal to last year’s total.

The num­ber of new death sen­tences in 2012 was the sec­ond low­est since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. Seventy-eight peo­ple were sen­tenced to death in 2012, rep­re­sent­ing a 75 per­cent decline since 1996 when there were 315 sentences.

Many death penal­ty states with his­to­ries of high use had no new death sen­tences or no exe­cu­tions in 2012. North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia (which is sec­ond to Texas in total exe­cu­tions since 1976) had no death sen­tences and no exe­cu­tions. No exe­cu­tions were car­ried out in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, or Missouri.

“Capital pun­ish­ment is becom­ing mar­gin­al­ized and mean­ing­less in most of the coun­try,” said Richard Dieter, DPIC’s Executive Director and the author of the report. ​“In 2012, few­er states have the death penal­ty, few­er car­ried out exe­cu­tions, and death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions were clus­tered in a small num­ber of states. It is very like­ly that more states will take up the ques­tion of death penal­ty repeal in the years ahead.”

Just four states (Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Arizona) were respon­si­ble for over three-quar­ters of exe­cu­tions nation­wide. Death sen­tences were also pri­mar­i­ly imposed in a few areas, with four states (Florida, California, Texas, and Alabama) account­ing for two-thirds (65 per­cent) of the nation’s death sentences.

The num­ber of states with the death penal­ty declined this year as Connecticut joined 16 oth­er states that have repealed the death penal­ty. Illinois abol­ished the death penal­ty in 2011. Five states in five years have aban­doned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment; the oth­er three were New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico.

California came close to repeal­ing the death penal­ty by a bal­lot mea­sure in November. Almost six mil­lion vot­ers – 48 per­cent of the elec­torate – sup­port­ed repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state, which has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in almost sev­en years. This was a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er per­cent­age than the 29 per­cent of the pub­lic who vot­ed against expand­ing the death penal­ty in 1978.

Download info­graph­ics relat­ed to the Year End Report.

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Click here for a full media cov­er­age report on DPIC’s 2012 Year End Report. 

See data on 2012 Sentencing by state, coun­ty, and race of defendant.