The Death Penalty in 2013: Year End Report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Executions Drop Below 40 for Only Second Time since 1994

Death Sentences Remain Near Record Lows, Number of States Repealing Capital Punishment Grows,
and Public Support for Death Penalty at 40-Year Low

(Washington, D.C.) With 39 exe­cu­tions in 2013, this year marks only the sec­ond time in near­ly two decades that the United States exe­cut­ed less than 40 peo­ple, accord­ing to a report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). One of the rea­sons for few­er exe­cu­tions in 2013 was states’ inabil­i­ty to obtain lethal injection drugs. 

Executions declined about 10% com­pared to 2012 — from 43 last year to 39 this year — and by 60% since 1999. There were 80 new death sen­tences in 2013, about the same as last year (77), which was the low­est num­ber since 1973. Death sen­tences have declined by 75% from 1996, when there were 315. 

“Twenty years ago, use of the death penal­ty was increas­ing. Now it is declin­ing by almost every mea­sure,” said Richard Dieter, DPIC’s Executive Director and the author of the report. ​“The recur­rent prob­lems of the death penal­ty have made its appli­ca­tion rare, iso­lat­ed, and often delayed for decades. More states will like­ly recon­sid­er the wis­dom of retain­ing this expen­sive and ineffectual practice.” 

In line with the death penalty’s decline, the num­ber of states with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws dropped to 32 this year, as Maryland became the 18^th abo­li­tion state. Six states in six years have aban­doned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: Maryland, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico. 

In 2013, pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty as mea­sured in the annu­al Gallup poll declined to 60%, its low­est lev­el in 40 years. In Boston, a strong major­i­ty (57%) of res­i­dents sup­port­ed a sen­tence of life with­out parole for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the sus­pect in the Boston Marathon bomb­ing, while only 33% of respon­dents sup­port­ed a death sentence. 

State-by-state data illus­trate the decline in death penal­ty use this year:

• Two states, Texas and Florida, were respon­si­ble for the major­i­ty (59%) of exe­cu­tions nation­wide. Texas had 16 exe­cu­tions and Florida had 7.
• For the sixth year in a row, Texas had less than 10 death sen­tences, a stark con­trast from 1999, when it recorded 48.
• Prominent death penal­ty states, includ­ing South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana, had no death sen­tences in 2013.
• California had about 30% of the country’s death sen­tences, though the state has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in seven years. 

In October, DPIC released an analy­sis of the death penal­ty by coun­ty that showed only two per­cent of the coun­ties in the U.S. have been respon­si­ble for the major­i­ty of cas­es lead­ing to exe­cu­tions since 1976. Eighty-five per­cent of the coun­ties in the U.S. have not had a sin­gle case result­ing in an exe­cu­tion in more than 45 years. (The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All)