Executions in US again under 30

WASHINGTON – Fewer than 30 people were executed in the United States and fewer than 50 new death sentences imposed for the fifth straight year, part of a continuing decline in capital punishment that saw only a few states carry out executions, a new report issued Tuesday said.

But even as death row populations were dropping in most of the 29 states that still have the death penalty, the Trump administration tried to restart executions on the federal level, and a more conservative Supreme Court appeared less willing to grant death-row inmates last-minute reprieves.

“The death penalty is disappearing from whole regions of the country and eroding in others, but the death penalty is persisting among outlier jurisdictions,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which produced the look at the death penalty in 2019.

Twenty of the 22 executions in 2019 took place in five Southern states, led by Texas with 9, the center said. The others are Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. Missouri and South Dakota each executed one inmate.

Elsewhere in the country, New Hampshire became the 21st state to abolish the death penalty, while California Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a formal moratorium on executions in a state with the largest death row population, although the last execution in California was nearly 14 years ago.

Also for the fifth straight year, no state west of Texas carried out an execution. There are 32 states that either have no death penalty or have not executed anyone in more than a decade.