The Death Penalty in 2016: Year End Report

Death Sentences, Executions Drop to Historic Lows in 2016

(Washington, D.C.) Death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, and pub­lic sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment all con­tin­ued his­toric declines in 2016. American juries imposed the fewest death sen­tences in the mod­ern era of U.S. cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, since the Supreme Court declared exist­ing death penal­ty statutes uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 1972. The expect­ed 30 new death sen­tences in 2016 rep­re­sent a 39 per­cent decline from last year’s already 40-year low of 49. The 20 exe­cu­tions this year marked the low­est num­ber in a quar­ter cen­tu­ry, accord­ing to a report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). National pub­lic opin­ion polls also showed sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at a 40-year low.

“America is in the midst of a major cli­mate change con­cern­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. While there may be fits and starts and occa­sion­al steps back­ward, the long-term trend remains clear,” said Robert Dunham, DPIC’s Executive Director and the author of the report. ​“Whether it’s con­cerns about inno­cence, costs, and dis­crim­i­na­tion, avail­abil­i­ty of life with­out parole as a safe alter­na­tive, or the ques­tion­able way in which states are attempt­ing to car­ry out exe­cu­tions, the pub­lic grows increas­ing­ly uncom­fort­able with the death penal­ty each year.”

For the first time in more than 40 years, no state imposed ten or more death sen­tences. Only five states imposed more than one death sen­tence. California imposed the most (9) fol­lowed by Ohio (4), Texas (4), Alabama (3) and Florida (2). Death sen­tences con­tin­ued to be clus­tered in two per­cent of coun­ties nation­wide, with Los Angeles County impos­ing four death sen­tences, the most of any coun­ty. But death sen­tences were down 39 per­cent, even in those two-percent counties.

This year’s 20 exe­cu­tions marked a decline of more than 25 per­cent since last year, when there were 28 exe­cu­tions. Only five states con­duct­ed exe­cu­tions this year, the fewest num­ber of states to do so since 1983. Two states – Georgia, which had the most exe­cu­tions (9), and Texas, which had the sec­ond high­est num­ber (7) – account­ed for 80 per­cent of all exe­cu­tions in the U.S. Although Georgia car­ried out more exe­cu­tions than at any oth­er time since the 1950s, juries in that state have not imposed any new death sen­tences in the past two years.

State and fed­er­al courts con­tin­ued to strike down out­lier prac­tices that increased the like­li­hood a death sen­tence would be imposed. The United States Supreme Court struck down prac­tices in Florida, Arizona, and Oklahoma that had dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly con­tributed to the num­ber of death sen­tences imposed in those states. And state courts in Florida and Delaware ruled that por­tions of their statutes that per­mit­ted the death penal­ty based upon a non-unan­i­mous jury vote on sen­tenc­ing were unconstitutional.

America’s deep divi­sions about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment were reflect­ed in vot­ers’ action at the bal­lot box this year. Voters in California and Nebraska vot­ed to retain the death penal­ty and Oklahoma vot­ers approved a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment regard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. At the same time, pros­e­cu­tors in four of the 16 coun­ties that impose the most death sen­tences in the U.S. were defeat­ed by can­di­dates who expressed per­son­al oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty or pledged to reform their county’s death penal­ty prac­tices. In Kansas, pro-death penal­ty groups spent more than $1 mil­lion to defeat four state supreme court jus­tices who had vot­ed to over­turn sev­er­al death sen­tences, but vot­ers retained all four justices.

DPIC’s review of the 20 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in 2016 indi­cat­ed that at least 60 per­cent of them showed sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence of men­tal ill­ness, brain impair­ment, and/​or low intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing. This sug­gests that, in spite of the con­sti­tu­tion­al require­ment that the death penal­ty be reserved for the ​“worst of the worst” offend­ers, states con­tin­ued to exe­cute pris­on­ers whose men­tal ill­ness or intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties are sim­i­lar to impair­ments the Court has said should make a per­son inel­i­gi­ble for the death penalty. 

For an analy­sis of the death penal­ty in Texas in 2016, read TCADP’s ​“Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2016: The Year in Review” at https://​tcadp​.org/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​1​6​/​1​2​/​T​e​x​a​s​-​D​e​a​t​h​-​P​e​n​a​l​t​y​-​D​e​v​e​l​o​p​m​e​n​t​s​-​i​n​-​2​0​1​6.pdf

DPIC pro­vides infor­ma­tion and analy­sis and tracks data on the death penal­ty, but does not take a posi­tion on capital punishment.

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The Death Penalty Information Center (www​.death​penal​ty​in​fo​.org) 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.

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2016 Sentencing Data by Name, Race, and County.