United States Reaches 1600 Executions, Demonstrating Disconnect Between Elected Officials and Declining Public Support

The United States has reached a mile­stone in the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment this week. All four sched­uled exe­cu­tions in Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Alabama took place, mark­ing the 1600^th exe­cu­tion in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty in the U.S., despite pub­lic opin­ion polls show­ing grow­ing con­cerns about the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty and declin­ing sup­port for its use.

The major­i­ty of U.S. states have either aban­doned use of the death penal­ty entire­ly or paused exe­cu­tions (29 states, the District of Columbia and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment). A Gallup poll recent­ly found that the per­cent­age of Americans who believe the death penal­ty is used unfair­ly increased to 50%, while over­all sup­port for the death penal­ty has been steadi­ly decreas­ing since 1994, now at a slim major­i­ty of 53%. Unlike past years, the death penal­ty isn’t among top vot­er pri­or­i­ties dur­ing this elec­tion year, and nei­ther nation­al polit­i­cal par­ty even men­tions use of the death penal­ty in their platforms.

While all the data con­tin­ue to show a decline in use and sup­port, a hand­ful of state elect­ed offi­cials have recent­ly expand­ed use of the death penal­ty. Utah, South Carolina, Idaho, and Indiana sched­uled exe­cu­tions in 2024 after at least a decade-long pause. Several state leg­is­la­tures have also autho­rized new meth­ods of exe­cu­tion, and two states (Florida and Tennessee) have added new death-eli­gi­ble crimes. DPI research sug­gests that these offi­cials are large­ly out of step with increas­ing pub­lic con­cern about the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — and that zeal­ous approach­es to using the death penal­ty that were once pop­u­lar are no longer win­ning the same lev­els of vot­er sup­port.

DPI’s data show that even at the peak of use and pub­lic sup­port, the death penal­ty has nev­er been a major­i­ty state prac­tice. Since 2012, the num­ber of states con­duct­ing exe­cu­tions has remained below 20% in any given year.

The decline in pub­lic sup­port can be viewed as a con­se­quence of the many prob­lems with the use of the death penal­ty. Earlier this year, Larry Roberts was the 200^th per­son exon­er­at­ed from death row. His release means that that there has been one exon­er­a­tion for every 8 exe­cu­tions. DPI has also iden­ti­fied more than 600 death sen­tences with pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct so sig­nif­i­cant that it result­ed in a rever­sal of the con­vic­tion or death sen­tence, or an exoneration.

Longstanding con­cerns about sys­temic racism have also per­sist­ed. Of the last 100 indi­vid­u­als exe­cut­ed in the United States, a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber (43%) have been peo­ple of col­or, includ­ing 31 who were Black. 72% of the vic­tims in those cas­es were white.

Three juris­dic­tions were respon­si­ble for more than half (56.8%) of total exe­cu­tions dur­ing the last five years: Texas (23), Oklahoma (14), and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment (13), which has had a mora­to­ri­um in place since 2021. Texas and Oklahoma both car­ried out exe­cu­tions this week. Fewer than 50 new death sen­tences have been imposed in each of the last five years, show­ing that juries are increas­ing­ly reject­ing the death penal­ty as an option, and those new sen­tences have occurred in just 12 states.

In the mod­ern era of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the state of Texas has con­duct­ed 590 exe­cu­tions, more than one-third of the total in the United States. Oklahoma has car­ried out 126 exe­cu­tions, and Virginia, before abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty in 2021, car­ried out 113 exe­cu­tions. Of the 1600 exe­cu­tions that have been car­ried out since 1977, 1418 indi­vid­u­als have been exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion, 163 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed by elec­tro­cu­tion, 13 peo­ple by lethal gas, three by hang­ing and three by firing squad.

According to data com­piled by Professor Michael Radelet, eight botched lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions have occurred since the 1500^th exe­cu­tion in 2019, includ­ing the failed exe­cu­tion of Alan Miller in September 2022, one of three botched exe­cu­tions in Alabama that year. On September 26, 2024, the state of Alabama exe­cut­ed Mr. Miller by nitro­gen hypox­ia. Mr. Miller was the 1600^th per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States since the resump­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976.

For more infor­ma­tion on 1600 exe­cu­tions, dive deep­er into the data, below.