Number of death sentences, executions in U.S. diminishing

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 11, 2008

WASHINGTON

New death sentences in the United States were at or near a 30-year low this year, and the number of people executed will be the lowest since 1994, according to a new report.

The nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center reports 37 executions in 2008, with no more expected for the remainder of the year. That is down 12 percent from 42 in 2007 and a 30 percent drop from 2006.

The center estimates the total number of death sentences this year at 111. That is on par with the 115 death sentences imposed in 2007 that also represented a 30-year low. It is more than a 60 percent drop from 1998, reflecting a steady decline over the past 10 years.

The report from center, which opposes the death penalty, also indicates that executions in the U.S. have essentially become a regional phenomenon. All but two of the 37 executions this year occurred in the South and Texas, with Ohio providing the sole exception.

Half of the executions were in Texas, where 18 inmates were put to death.

Virginia executed four prisoners. Georgia and South Carolina executed three each; Florida, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Ohio each executed two, and Kentucky, one.

All of the executions in 2008 occurred after April 16, when a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the use of lethal injections ended what had been a de facto moratorium in place for almost seven months.

Experts differed on the moratorium's effect. Richard Dieter, the center's executive director, had expected the numbers to spike in 2008 as states rushed to implement executions that had been on hold. The fact that there wasn't a spike, he said, demonstrates the inherent problems with the death penalty, including the struggle to ensure a fair appeal process on such issues as DNA evidence and inadequate defenses.

But Richard Bonnie, a law professor at the University of Virginia and an expert on capital punishment, said it was expected that it would take some time after the moratorium was lifted for the normal pace of executions to resume, and he does not consider the drop in executions in 2008 as proof of a long-term decline.

What is more important, Bonnie said, is the drop in death sentences. That data is unaffected by the moratorium, which banned only executions, not death sentences handed down by judges and juries.

Death sentences have been on the decline for more than 10 years. Bonnie said that while a majority of Americans still favor the death penalty, their fervor for it was waned as violent crime rates have receded.

Dieter also said that recent death-row exonerations prompted by DNA evidence have planted seeds of doubt in the public's mind about carrying out an irrevocable punishment.