Death sentences, executions drop to modern lows

Practice slackens, but public willing to retain option

A year that began with the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the death penalty in one of the most active capital punishment states ended with the country reaching modern lows in executions and death sentences, the most glaring signs yet about how the practice has dwindled in America.

Still, even as capital punishment has declined in sentencing and practice, there were also signs this year of its persistence from lawmakers, judges and the public, reminders the death penalty is far from fading away.

The United States saw 20 executions this year, the fewest nationwide in 25 years. This number has dropped from the modern peak of 98 executions in 1999, coming as states have struggled to obtain lethal injection drugs and halted executions in the face of court rulings. Sentencing milestone

But that tells only part of the story. There will be a total of 30 new death sentences this year, the lowest number in the modern era, according to a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. That is the fewest new death sentences in a single year since 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively halted capital punishment by striking down sentencing statutes. (The justices reinstated the death penalty four years later.) In 1996, states across the country handed down 315 death sentences, the report states.

The numbers this year are part of “a consistent long-term trend” with a number of explanations, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

“Fewer states authorize the death penalty than in the 1990s,” Dunham said. “There are fewer counties in those states that are pursuing capital punishment. Prosecutors in the counties that are pursuing capital punishment are pursuing it less frequently. And juries are returning death verdicts less frequently. The combination of all of these factors has reduced the number of death sentences.”

Dunham also pointed to court rulings against the practice, declining public support for it and cases where people on death row have been exonerated as other reasons the death penalty is being used less often.

But Dunham also pointed to outcomes on Election Day last month that he said showed “we are not at the point that the public is willing to dispense with the death penalty entirely.”

People in three states — Nebraska, Oklahoma and California — were given a chance to vote on the death penalty, and in all three cases, capital punishment won out.

Support for the death penalty has declined nationwide, although polls are split on precisely where public opinion.

A Pew Research Center survey this year found the share of Americans supporting the death penalty had dropped below 50 percent, its lowest level since the 1970s. Meanwhile, a Gallup poll in October found that support remained at 60 percent, lower than the past few years but on par with where it was in 2013.

Just five states carried out the country’s 20 executions this year, and almost all of them were concentrated in two places: Georgia, which executed nine inmates, and Texas, which executed seven. This year marked the first time since 1996 that Texas did not execute at least 10 inmates. Execution protocols

States have turned to midazolam and other chemicals amid a yearslong shortage of lethalinjection drugs that has been prompted, in part, by European opposition to the death penalty. This has halted a supply of the chemicals, causing states to revamp their execution protocols.

Ohio has been at the intersection of several of these trends, halting executions for what will turn out to be at least three years after it changed its lethal-injection protocol and sought new drugs. The state was planning to resume executions in January for the first time since a lethal injection in 2014 that lasted nearly 30 minutes. But in response to a lawsuit challenging the secrecy law over the state’s execution drugs, a judge delayed those executions. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, R, earlier responded by rescheduling those executions once again.