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The Death Penalty Year in Review

By Robert J. Ambrogi

If there is ever good news to be found in statistics tracking the death penalty, it is this: The number of death sentences imposed in 2009 was the lowest since 1976, the year the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty with its opinion in Gregg v. Georgia. The number of death sentences imposed during 2009 was 106, down from 111 the year before, 284 a decade ago, and a high of 328 in 1994, according to a year-end report published today by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that opposes the death penalty. The decline in death sentences was particularly apparent in Texas and Virginia, the two leading states in carrying out executions, the report said. During the 1990s, Texas averaged 34 death sentences a year and Virginia averaged six. This year, the report found that Texas had nine death sentences and Virginia just one. If that is the good news, the bad news is that the number of executions rose this year, from 37 in 2008 to 52 in 2009. The report attributed the rise to a de facto moratorium on executions for four months in 2008 while the Supreme Court considered a case involving lethal injections....

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on December 18, 2009 (boomark / email).