USA: 5 facts about the death penalty

Gathering signatures against the Nebraska death penalty repeal.

President Donald Trump has voiced his support for the death penalty, and a recent Pew Research Center survey found an uptick in the share of Americans who favor capital punishment for those convicted of murder.

Over the long term, however, public support for the death penalty has declined significantly, as has the number of executions in the United States.

As the debate over the death penalty continues in the U.S. and worldwide, here are 5 facts about the issue:

The annual number of U.S. executions peaked at 98 in 1999 and has fallen sharply in the years since. In 2017, 23 inmates were executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. That's slightly higher than the year before, when 20 people were executed, but still well below the number of inmates annually put to death in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Just 8 states - Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Texas and Virginia - accounted for all executions in 2017, compared with 20 states in 1999.

In 2017, for the 2nd year in a row, the U.S. was not among the world's top 5 countries in executions, according to Amnesty International, a human rights organization that opposes the practice. The U.S. ranked 8th internationally, behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt and Somalia. Overall, there were at least 993 executions in 23 nations in 2017, down slightly from 1,032 in 2016. The international total includes only cases Amnesty was able to confirm - the report notes that some countries intentionally conceal death penalty proceedings. In the case of China, for example, the state may well carry out more executions than all other countries combined. Indeed, Cornell University Law School estimates that the Chinese government executed about 2,400 people in 2015, and has carried out thousands of additional executions in the years since.

Support for the death penalty in the U.S. has ticked up recently, but is far lower than it was 2 decades ago. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in April and May 2018 found that 54% of Americans favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while 39% oppose it. That was up from 2016, when 49% of U.S. adults said they favored the death penalty, compared with 42% who opposed it. But it was far lower than in 1996, when 78% of Americans supported capital punishment for those convicted of murder.

There are racial, gender and political divides in opinions on the death penalty in the U.S. A majority of whites (59%) favor the death penalty, compared with 36% of blacks and 47% of Hispanics, according to the Center's 2018 survey. Also, men are more likely than women to favor capital punishment (61% vs. 46%). Partisanship also plays a role, with Republicans more than twice as likely as Democrats to support the death penalty (77% vs. 35%).

Americans harbor doubts about how the death penalty is applied and whether it deters serious crime. In a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2015, about 6-in-10 adults said the death penalty does not deter people from committing serious crimes. About 1/2 also said that minorities are more likely than whites to be sentenced to death for similar crimes, compared with 41% who said a death sentence is equally likely for both. About 7-in-10 adults (71%) said there is a risk that an innocent person will be put to death, including 84% of those who oppose the death penalty. Even a majority of death penalty supporters (63%) said there's a risk of taking an innocent life. At the same time, a majority of Americans (63%) said the death penalty is morally justified when someone commits a crime like murder. 9-in-10 death penalty supporters held this view.

Source: pewresearch.org, David Masci, June 27, 2018

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Oklahoma Sets November Execution Date for Air Force Veteran Jim Pavatt Amid Claims of Wrongful Conviction

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has scheduled the execution of Air Force veteran and longtime death row prisoner Jim Pavatt for Nov. 12, as his attorneys continue to challenge his conviction and contend that prosecutors relied on false arguments, disputed forensic evidence and an alleged confession they later described as bogus. Pavatt, who served nearly 22 years in the Air Force and rose to the rank of master sergeant, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2001 killing of Rob Andrew in Oklahoma City. His execution is scheduled for the day after Veterans Day.

Indiana high court sets Nov. 5 execution date for convicted child killer

The court’s decision came a little more than two months after Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the justices to schedule Weisheit’s execution. State attorneys argued Weisheit had exhausted his state and federal appeals, had no active stay of execution, and could lawfully be put to death. The inmate’s attorneys opposed setting a date, saying they needed more time to pursue available legal proceedings and possible executive clemency. The defense additionally pointed to public records that it said showed the Indiana Department of Correction lacked the drugs needed to conduct an execution and had no lawful source from which to obtain them.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

Florida executes Harold Gene Lucas

Florida state officials executed 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas by lethal injection on Tuesday evening, concluding a 50-year legal saga stemming from the 1976 murder of a 16-year-old girl in Bonita Springs. STARKE, Fla. -- A man convicted of killing a teenage girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was put to death Tuesday in the first of three executions planned this month in Florida. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, authorities said. He was sentenced to death for the 1976 shooting attack on Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.

Hanging of Osaka Arsonist is Japan’s First Execution Under Takaichi Government

As a majority of the international community has abolished capital punishment. Japan and the U.S. are the only two countries in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that put people to death. The execution of Takami Sunao—an arsonist whose 2009 attack in Osaka killed five—on August 21, 2026, was Japan’s first use of capital punishment in just over a year. Over a Decade from Sentencing to Execution Takami Sunao was executed on August 21, 2026 , for a 2009 arson attack at an Osaka pachinko parlor that killed five people. In July 2009, Takami poured gasoline on the floor of a pachinko parlor in Osaka and set it alight, killing 5 customers and staff members and injuring 10 more. While the defense argued that he was in a state of diminished capacity, the Supreme Court finalized his death sentence in February 2016. The execution took place 17 years after the initial crime and 10 and a half years after the death sentence was finalized.

Algeria's President orders Penal Code amendment to introduce death penalty with immediate execution

The president has raised the possibility that some of the fires may have been criminally set and ordered authorities to investigate their causes and identify those responsible. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has ordered amendments to the country’s penal code to allow the death penalty to be carried out against people convicted of deliberately setting forest fires, after a wave of devastating blazes killed 12 people and caused extensive damage across the country.

Florida | Jury recommends death sentence for Jeffrey Crum in killing of 12-year-old girl

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — A Hernando County jury has recommended the death penalty for a 65-year-old man who was found guilty last week of raping and killing 12-year-old Jennifer Odom. Sentencing for Jeffrey Crum was held this week. Crum abducted Odom in 1993 after she stepped off her school bus in Pasco County. Her body was found in a Hernando County orange grove six days later.

Florida set to carry out 14th execution this year in the nation's busiest death chamber

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends is set to be executed Tuesday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled this month in the state. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is set to receive a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6 p.m. He would be the 14th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has already signed death warrants for two more executions set for later this September.

Ex-corrections officials urge governor to commute Kansas death sentences

Former Kansas corrections officials are urging Governor Laura Kelly to grant clemency to the state's death row inmates. Former Kansas Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz has several reasons why he thinks the state should abolish the death penalty. Werholtz, who served as secretary from 2002 to 2010 and returned on an interim basis in 2019, uses his discussions with peers and family members of victims as well as experiences of seeing wrongly convicted people getting exonerated as his guiding points.

Japan executes man convicted of killing five in 2009 Osaka pachinko parlor arson

Japan on Friday announced the execution of a man convicted of killing five people after setting fire to an Osaka pachinko parlor in 2009, the first execution by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi 's government as the country faces growing calls for more transparency and the abolition of capital punishment. The Justice Ministry said Sunao Takami, 58, was hanged to death earlier Friday. Takami in 2009 set fire to the crowded pachinko parlor in Osaka by spreading gasoline and throwing a lit match, engulfing the building, killing five and injuring 10 others, Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog