The Washington Post
Executions are down sharply across the country for the second year in a row, with dramatic declines in the leading death penalty states of Virginia and Texas, and if the trend continues, the United States would execute the fewest inmates since 1996.
Nationally, 48 people have been put to death in 2001, down 27 percent from this time last year. With 14 more executions scheduled, this year’s total could be down a third from the 1999 high of 98.
The declines reflect the decade-long reduction in the crime rate and a public less enthusiastic about the death penalty. As discussion has grown about the fairness and reliability of capital convictions, judges and governors also have become more willing to stop executions and take a second look at questionable cases.
By far the most striking change has come in Texas, which executed a record 40 inmates last year. This year, 12 people have been put to death, with six more executions scheduled. Virginia has executed one inmate this year — compared with eight last year and 14 in 1999 — and one execution is scheduled.
In fact, executions are down in nine of the 11 states that historically have put the most inmates to death.
Though execution numbers often fluctuate, observers on both sides of the death penalty debate agree that the country may be on the cusp of changing the way the ultimate punishment is meted out. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found that public support for the death penalty is now at 63 percent, the lowest in two decades.
Twenty-one people have been released from death row in the past three years after DNA tests or other new evidence cast doubt on their convictions, and Texas cases involving underpaid, sleeping and incompetent lawyers gained widespread attention because of last year’s presidential election.
This year, 23 of the 38 states that have capital punishment enacted reform measures. Congress is considering national legislation, and the swing justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, recently expressed "serious doubts" about the way the death penalty is applied.
"There is a growing acknowledgment generally that the death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst," said Oregon prosecutor Joshua Marquis, a board member of the National District Attorneys Association. "I think the degree of judicial scrutiny has increased and the political pressure on governors for clemency has increased … and juries and prosecutors are becoming more sophisticated about whom to put on death row."
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