Is the death penalty 'fading away'? Executions in 2016 could drop to 25-year low point
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says there aren’t enough votes on the U.S. Supreme Court to abolish capital punishment, but the penalty nonetheless appears to be “fading away.”
“Most states don’t have any executions,” Ginsburg told the Associated Press in July. “The executions that we have are very heavily concentrated in a few states and even a few counties within those states.”
Her comments reflect the death penalty’s decline. According to AP, there have been just two executions since the beginning of May and only 15 since the beginning of the year. If the pace stays the same, there will be only 19 executions in 2016, the lowest total since 1991.
The decline is caused by drug shortages, botched executions and legal challenges, according to AP.
Executions are occurring regularly in only three states—Texas, Georgia and Missouri. But at least two other states—Ohio and Oklahoma—plan to resume executions after correcting problems with the execution drugs.
In California, where no one has been executed in 10 years, voters will be presented conflicting ballot questions on the death penalty. One measure would abolish the death penalty, and another would speed up the appeals process in such cases.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, says a lengthy hiatus for executions could lead to a reluctance to resume them. “Right now most states are comfortable not executing anybody. And for the most part, the public is comfortable, even in death penalty states, with their states not executing anybody,” he told AP.
