Capital Punishment Statistics

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Capital Punishment Statistics

Summary Findingsa

Government report

By: Bureau of Justice Statistics

Date: January 13, 2005

Source: "Capital Punishment Statistics: Summary Findings." Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005. 〈http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm〉 (accessed February 27, 2006).

About the Author: Founded in 1979, the Bureau of Justice Statistics is part of the U.S. Department of Justice. Its role is to collect, analyze, publish and disseminate information on crime, offenders, victims, and operation of the justice system at all levels of government.

INTRODUCTION

Death by execution has played an important role in human justice. Many countries have now abolished capital punishment, although the concept continues to attract some public support. In the United States, thirty-eight states still have capital punishment, although it was ruled unconstitutional in Kansas and New York in 2004. Twelve states, including Maine, Rhode Island, Alaska, and Hawaii, do not have the death penalty.

There is a clear geographical, and maybe cultural and political, influence on how and if the death penalty operates in the United States. There are many states who have not executed anyone in the last thirty years—such as New Hampshire, New Jersey, and South Dakota. In this time, Texas has executed 357, followed by Virginia with 94, while Wyoming, Tennessee, and several other states have executed only one person during this time. There have been some changes in the law relating to the death penalty in recent years. In 2005, the death penalty was outlawed for juveniles and in 2002 for those who are mentally retarded.

Hangings, beheadings—and worse—used to be a public spectacle and entertainment. Execution today is a more private matter, although witnesses are still necessary. If execution is necessary, today's ethics ask it be done in a humane way. Accordingly, the majority of death penalties in the United States over the last thirty years have been carried out by lethal injection, followed by electrocution and gas. There is a trend towards using the lethal injection as the sole means of execution. For instance, Utah banned death by firing squad in 2004 in favor of the lethal injection. The extract below summarizes the latest statistics on the death penalty in the United States.

PRIMARY SOURCE

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT STATISTICS

Summary Findings: Executions 2003–2004 Executions

In 2004, 59 inmates were executed, 6 fewer than in 2003.

In 2003, 65 persons in 11 States and the Federal system were executed—24 in Texas; 14 in Oklahoma, 7 in North Carolina; 3 each in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio; 2 each in Indiana, Missouri, and Virginia; and 1 each in Arkansas and the Federal system.

Of persons executed in 2003:

41 were white
20 were black
3 were Hispanic (all white)
1 American Indian

Of those executed in 2003:

65 were men

Lethal injection accounted for 64 of the executions; 1 was carried out by electrocution.

Thirty-eight States and the Federal government in 2003 had capital statutes.

Prisoners under sentence of death

The number of prisoners under sentence of death at yearend 2003 decreased for the third consecutive year. At yearend 2003, 37 States and the Federal prison system held 3,374 prisoners under sentence of death, 188 fewer than at yearend 2002.

Since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, white inmates have made up more than half of the number under sentence of death.

Of persons under sentence of death in 2003:

1,878 were white
1,418 were black
29 were American Indian
35 were Asian
14 were of unknown race.

Forty-seven women were under a sentence of death. The 369 Hispanic inmates under sentence of death accounted for 12% of inmates with a known ethnicity. Among inmates under sentence of death and with available criminal histories:

nearly 2 in 3 had a prior felony conviction
about 1 in 12 had a prior homicide conviction.

Among persons for whom arrest information was available, the average age at time of arrest was 28; 2% of inmates were age 17 or younger.

At year end, the youngest inmate under sentence of death was 19; the oldest was 88.

SIGNIFICANCE

South Korea and Japan are the only other democratic societies in the world retaining the death penalty. In the United States, there have been around 13,000 legal executions since colonial times. In the 1930s, there were around 150 executions a year. After that, the public and the justice system seemed to turn against capital punishment and the number of executions was down to almost zero by 1967. The Supreme Court actually banned the death penalty in 1972, but it was brought back in 1976. The peak year for executions in the United States in recent times was 2000, when ninety-eight people received the death penalty. Since 1976, there has been a total of 1,009 executions. The number of death sentences handed out has, however, gone down dramatically since 1999 when it was 276. In 2004, the figure was 125 and at its peak, in 1995 and 1996, it was 317.

There is an issue over race and the death penalty in the United States, which various research studies have sought to penetrate. The data shows that thirty-four percent of those executed since 1976 have been black compared to fifty-eight percent white. If data on victims in crimes attracting the death penalty is analyzed, then seventy-nine percent were white and fourteen percent black. Interracial murder is a strong factor in death penalties ordered by judges but there is a clear racial disparity. There have been twelve executions involving a white defendant and a black victim and 209 involving a black defendant and a white victim. There is also a large geographical divide in murder and death penalty statistics. The Southern states have the highest murder rate (6.6 per 100,000 in 2004) and account for over eighty percent of all executions. In the Northeastern States, the murder rate is lowest at 4.2 per 100,000 and these states have less than one percent of all executions.

Opponents of capital punishment often argue about the risk of executing an innocent person. The statistics do lend some credence to this argument. Over 120 people have been released from Death Row since 1973 with evidence of their innocence, following successful appeals. There are currently over 3,000 inmates awaiting the death sentence in the United States, most of them in California, Texas, and Florida. Around half are white and half are black. Only forty-nine of them are women.

Even if the death penalty carries the risk of executing an innocent person, it could still have some value to society if it acts as a deterrent. However, a recent survey of criminologists had eighty-four percent of them rejecting this idea, as do a majority of police chiefs. But public support for capital punishment remains strong. A Gallup poll done in 2005 found sixty-four percent in favor, compared with eighty percent in 1994. However, if there was the option of life without parole, the proportion in favor of the death penalty went down to fifty percent. Many faith groups, including the Catholic Church, are strongly opposed to the death penalty.