Changing Attitudes and Shortage of Death Drug Lead to Fewer Executions
States have executed 46 death-row inmates this year, a drop of 12 percent from 2009 and a decrease of more than 50 percent since 1999.
The lower figure may be attributable to changing attitudes and the shortage of a drug used in lethal injections, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The group’s year-end report (PDF) is noted in stories by the Associated Press, CNN and the New York Times. Thirty-five states authorize the death penalty, but only 12 carried out executions, most of them in the South.
Texas executed 17 people in 2010, the most of any state. But the number represents the biggest drop in executions among all the states. Texas executed 24 inmates in 2009 and 48 in 1999. The report says part of the reason for the decrease is the state’s adoption of life without parole in 2005, an option that is becoming more widespread throughout the United States. The report also attributed the decline to “the ongoing residue of past mistakes” in Texas death penalty cases and changes in district attorneys offices in cities such as Dallas and Houston.
The author of the report is Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “There’s just a whole lot more concern about the accuracy of the death penalty, the fairness and even the costs—all are contributing,” he told the New York Times.
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, had another take on the figures. He told the Times death sentences are declining partly because fewer murders are being committed, and the reason for that is the nation’s high rate of incarceration.
