Both exe­cu­tions and new death sen­tences in the United States are on pace for sig­nif­i­cant declines to their low­est lev­els in a gen­er­a­tion, Reuters reports. With 25 exe­cu­tions con­duct­ed so far this year, and only two more sched­uled, the United States could have its low­est num­ber of exe­cu­tions since 1991, sig­nif­i­cant­ly below the peak of 98 exe­cu­tions in 1999. Only 8 states have car­ried out exe­cu­tions in the last two years, down from a high of 20, also in 1999. New death sen­tences, which peaked at 315 in 1996, declined to 73 last year, and that num­ber is expect­ed to drop even fur­ther this year. The slow­downs in exe­cu­tions and new death sen­tences are just two of sev­er­al indi­ca­tors that the U.S. is mov­ing away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Reuters reports that these changes come from a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, includ­ing the high cost of death penal­ty cas­es, the recent prob­lems sur­round­ing lethal injec­tion, and improved cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in high-use states. Texas and Virginia, two of the death penal­ty states that his­tor­i­cal­ly have been the most aggres­sive in car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions, stand out as exam­ples of the pun­ish­men­t’s declin­ing use. Both states have imple­ment­ed major reforms in indi­gent defense in recent years, pro­duc­ing dra­mat­ic changes in the death penal­ty land­scape. In Texas, which had 48 death sen­tences in 1999, juries have hand­ed down only three death sen­tences so far this year. Virginia, which has exe­cut­ed the high­est per­cent­age of death row inmates of any state, is on track to have no death sen­tences for the fourth con­sec­u­tive year.

(J. Herskovitz, ​“U.S. death penal­ties, exe­cu­tions slow as cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is squeezed,” Reuters, November 15, 2015.) See Sentencing and Executions.

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