A new study of four­teen years of Pennsylvania mur­der con­vic­tions has doc­u­ment­ed a sharp decline in coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors’ use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment across the Commonwealth. After exam­in­ing the court files of 4,184 mur­der con­vic­tions from 2004 to 2017, the Allentown Morning Call found that Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty at more than triple the rate (3.3) at the start of the study peri­od than they did four­teen years lat­er — a drop of more than 70%. In 2004, the paper report­ed, pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty in 123 of 309 (39.8%) mur­der cas­es that ulti­mate­ly result­ed in a con­vic­tion. In 2017, they sought it in 33 of 271 cas­es (12.2%). While there were some year-to-year fluc­tu­a­tions in death-penal­ty usage over the 14-year peri­od, the pat­tern showed a clear long-term down­ward trend. Though most (59) of Pennsylvania’s 67 coun­ties had at least one cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion, the change was large­ly dri­ven by the steep decline in the pur­suit of the death penal­ty in Philadelphia. The city, which had 88 pris­on­ers on its death row in January 2013 — the third high­est of any city or coun­ty in the coun­try — dropped from seek­ing death in more than half of all mur­der con­vic­tions (69 out of 134) in 2004 to 15% of the cas­es (16 out of 106) in 2017. The Morning Call report­ed that of the more than 1,100 case files of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions it reviewed, 56 result­ed in death sen­tences dur­ing the study peri­od. The rest end­ed in plea bar­gains or sen­tences oth­er than death.

The decline in cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions accom­pa­nies a twen­ty-year hia­tus in exe­cu­tions in Pennsylvania dur­ing which the state and fed­er­al courts have over­turned near­ly 200 Pennsylvania cap­i­tal con­vic­tions or death sen­tences, and a drop in pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty. A 2015 poll by Public Policy Polling report­ed that 54% of Pennsylvania respon­dents said they pre­ferred some form of life sen­tence as the pun­ish­ment for mur­der, as com­pared to 42% who said they pre­ferred the death penal­ty. Death sen­tences have also plum­met­ed by near­ly 90%. According to sta­tis­tics from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, the state imposed an aver­age of 15.8 death sen­tences per year in the five-year peri­od from 1989 – 1993. But by 2004 – 2008, the aver­age had fall­en to 5.2 death sen­tences per year, and it dropped to only 1.8 death sen­tences per year from 2014 – 2018.

Prosecutors ​“are scru­ti­niz­ing these deci­sions much more than ever before,” said Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams, for­mer pres­i­dent of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. ​“All of us are very cog­nizant of the fact that there’s a lot that we as pros­e­cu­tors are asked to do as far as seek­ing the death penal­ty.” Marc Bookman, co-direc­tor of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, which advis­es lawyers who are han­dling death-penal­ty tri­als, said, ​“Mostly it is just a recog­ni­tion that it is a failed pub­lic pol­i­cy. We’re see­ing it more and more com­ing from elect­ed offi­cials, say­ing it is a failed pub­lic pol­i­cy.” Governor Tom Wolf imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2015, and said he intends to extend that mora­to­ri­um until the leg­is­la­ture address­es prob­lems iden­ti­fied by the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment. ​“He looks for­ward to work­ing with the General Assembly on their plans to address the report and its rec­om­men­da­tions for leg­isla­tive changes, all of which he believes should be debat­ed and con­sid­ered,” the governor’s spokesper­son said in a statement.

(Riley Yates, Death penal­ty has fall­en out of favor with Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tors, Allentown Morning Call, March 3, 2019.) See Studies.

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