Thursday, December 27, 2007
Washington Post: In many ways 2007 was a remarkable year in the history of the death penalty. Forty-two people were executed, the fewest since 1994 and down from last year’s 53. According to a year-end report by the Death Penalty Information Center, fewer prisoners were sentenced to death in 2007 than in any year since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment.
Some of the downward momentum can be attributed to the Supreme Court itself, which imposed a de facto moratorium on executions until it decides whether lethal injection — the most common method of execution in the country — constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Roughly 40 cases involving the death penalty were put on hold as a result.
Other hopeful signs don’t necessarily show up in statistics. In early December, New Jersey became the first state in 40 years to legislatively abolish the death penalty. Earlier, New York courts struck down capital punishment in that state. Legislatures in several states, including Nebraska, New Mexico and Montana, came close to abolishing the practice.
Other states, including Maryland, which rarely invokes its death penalty statute, are studying the matter. DNA evidence continues to erode public confidence that the death penalty can be exacted without tragic and irreversible mistakes. Just this year, three more death row inmates were exonerated, two of them through the use of DNA evidence. The third was freed after eyewitnesses recanted their stories.
Regional phenomenon
The death penalty center’s report highlights how much of a regional phenomenon the death penalty remains. Only 10 states carried out the 42 executions in 2007, and 86 percent of those took place in the South. Texas alone executed 26 convicts, two more than it did in 2006. The state accounted for an astonishing 62 percent of all executions in 2007. Alabama and Oklahoma, the states with the next highest number of executions, each put to death three inmates.