Executions decline, possibly over conviction doubts

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Death row executions dropped to 85 last year, 13 fewer than in 1999, the Justice Department reported Tuesday. The decline signals that wrongful murder convictions and a lower homicide rate are driving down the use of the ultimate punishment.

Forty of last year’s 85 executions took place in Texas and 11 were in Oklahoma, the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reported. There were executions in a dozen other states.

Just 214 death sentences were handed out in the United States last year, compared with 280 in 1999 and 303 in 1998.

"This would be the lowest number of death sentences imposed in the country since 1980" when the figure was 173, said Columbia University law professor James Liebman.

There is a growing concern in courts, governors’ offices and state legislatures about mistakes in death penalty cases, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

The total number of executions for 2001 will be 66, Dieter predicted.

The figures for 2000:

  • Those executed included 49 whites, including six white Hispanics; 35 blacks; and one American Indian.

  • Eighty of the executions were by lethal injection and five by electrocution.

  • Thirty-seven states and the federal government held 3,539 men and 54 women on death row at the end of last year, 53 more than the year before. California had the most with 586, followed by 450 in Texas. The federal system held 18.

    Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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