The Death Penalty in 2015: Year End Report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Death Penalty Use in 2015 Declines Sharply

Fewest Executions, Fewest Death Sentences, and Fewest States Employing the Death Penalty in Decades

(Washington, D.C.) The use of the death penal­ty in the U.S. declined by vir­tu­al­ly every mea­sure in 2015. The 28 exe­cu­tions this year marked the low­est num­ber since 1991, accord­ing to a report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). As of December 15, four­teen states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment have imposed 49 new death sen­tences this year, a 33% decline over last year’s total and the low­est num­ber since the ear­ly 1970s when the death penal­ty was halt­ed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Only six states con­duct­ed exe­cu­tions this year, the fewest num­ber of states in 27 years. Eighty-six per­cent of exe­cu­tions this year were con­cen­trat­ed in just three states: Texas (13), Missouri (6), and Georgia (5). Executions in 2015 declined 20 per­cent from 2014, when there were 35. This year was the first time in 24 years that the num­ber of exe­cu­tions was below 30.

Death sen­tences have been steadi­ly declin­ing in the U.S. over the past 15 years. The coun­try has now imposed few­er death sen­tences in the past ten years than in the decade just before the U.S. Supreme Court declared the death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 1972.

“The use of the death penal­ty is becom­ing increas­ing­ly rare and increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed in the United States. These are not just annu­al blips in sta­tis­tics, but reflect a broad change in atti­tudes about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment across the coun­try,” said Robert Dunham, DPIC’s Executive Director and the author of the report. DPIC tracks data on the death penal­ty, but does not take a posi­tion on capital punishment.

Relatively few juris­dic­tions hand­ed down death sen­tences in 2015. A sin­gle coun­ty — Riverside, California — imposed 16% of all death sen­tences in the U.S., and account­ed for more death ver­dicts than any state, except for Florida. More than a quar­ter of the death sen­tences were imposed by Florida and Alabama after non-unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tions of death — a prac­tice barred in all but three states. Texas, by con­trast, imposed only two new death sen­tences in 2015.¹ Nearly two-thirds of all new death sen­tences this year came from the same two per­cent of U.S. coun­ties that are respon­si­ble for more than half of all death-sen­tenced inmates nationwide.

Read DPIC’s ​“The Death Penalty in 2015: Year End Report”.

Even as the use of the death penal­ty declined, its most dan­ger­ous flaw remained appar­ent. Six death row pris­on­ers were exon­er­at­ed of all charges this year, one each in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas. Since 1973, a total of 156 inmates have been exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row.

The num­ber of peo­ple on death row dropped below 3,000 for the first time since 1995, accord­ing to the lat­est sur­vey by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

At least 70 death row pris­on­ers with exe­cu­tion dates in 2015 received stays, reprieves, or com­mu­ta­tions, 2.5 times the num­ber who were executed.

In addi­tion, there is an ongo­ing risk that judi­cial review is inad­e­quate to pro­tect cap­i­tal defen­dants with seri­ous intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties or crip­pling men­tal ill­ness. DPIC’s report states: ​“The death penal­ty is sup­posed to be reserved for the worst of the worst crimes and the worst of the worst offend­ers. However, … [t]wo-thirds of the 28 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in 2015 exhib­it­ed symp­toms of severe men­tal ill­ness, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, the debil­i­tat­ing effects of extreme trau­ma and abuse, or some com­bi­na­tion of the three.”

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The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion serv­ing the media and the pub­lic with analy­sis and infor­ma­tion on issues con­cern­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. DPIC was found­ed in 1990 and pre­pares in-depth reports, issues press releas­es, con­ducts brief­in­gs for the media, and serves as a resource to those work­ing on this issue.

1. A Texas-spe­cif­ic report is being released by anoth­er orga­ni­za­tion: see ​“Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2015: The Year in Review”.

(Right click on ​“Download” and select ​“Save Linked File” or ​“Save Target File”)

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See 2015 Sentencing Data by Name, Race, and County.