June 29, - The Supreme Court rules, in a decision, that the use of the sedative midazolam in lethal injections is not a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Midazolam is one of three drugs that are combined to carry out the death penalty in Oklahoma. August 2, - The Delaware Supreme Court rules the state's death penalty law unconstitutional.
Attorney General Matt Denn later announces that he will not appeal the decision. November 8, - Voters in California, Nebraska and Oklahoma are asked to weigh in on the death penalty with referendum questions on ballots.
In all three states, majorities vote in favor of the death penalty. April - Of the eight prisoners Arkansas had planned to execute before the state's supply of a lethal injection drug expires, four are put to death: Ledell Lee, Jack Jones, Marcel Williams and Kenneth Williams. April 20, - The FDA rules that imported vials of the execution drug sodium thiopental, ordered by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Arizona Department of Corrections, must be destroyed or exported within 90 days.
The FDA had seized the shipment in Sodium thiopental is not approved in the United States. April 25, - The Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission releases a report recommending the continuation of the moratorium on the death penalty, citing the need for significant reforms.
January 25, - Ohio Governor Mike DeWine delays execution of Warren Henness pending an official assessment of the state's execution system. This is in response to a January 14 federal court decision regarding the severity of its three-drug protocol. DeWine later announces that the state will have no executions until a method that will stand up to legal scrutiny is established.
February 27, - The Supreme Court rules in favor of death row inmate Vernon Madison, sending his case back to state court "for renewed consideration of Madison's competency. Madison, who has dementia, can no longer remember his crime, the April killing of an Alabama police officer.
There is a ruling by the court as Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed after the case was argued. Chief Justice John Roberts concurs. March 13, - Governor Gavin Newsom signs an executive order placing a moratorium on the death penalty in California. May 30, - New Hampshire repeals the death penalty after the state legislature votes to override a veto from Governor Chris Sununu, making it the 21st state to abolish capital punishment in the United States.
Barr has directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to adopt an updated execution protocol and schedule the executions of five death row inmates. The last federal execution was in November 20, - A judge blocks the federal government from carrying out executions scheduled to begin in December, halting the Justice Department's plans to reinstate the death penalty.
December 6, - The Supreme Court denies the Trump administration's request to reverse the lower court's ruling , so the executions remain on hold.
March 23, - Gov. Jared Polis signs legislation abolishing the death penalty , making Colorado the 22nd state to do so. Two-thirds were people of color, and more than two-thirds of the victims were white. Related Article. Executing people with mental illness presents the same concerns about culpability and reliability that led the Court to bar the death penalty for children and people with intellectual disability.
People who have a mental illness or disability that significantly impairs their cognitive or volitional functioning at the time of the offense should be exempted from capital punishment because they do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct. People with mental illness are more vulnerable to police pressure, are less able to give meaningful assistance to their counsel, and are typically poor witnesses. People who have a mental illness that causes delusions are more likely to insist on representing themselves at trial; they are prone to outbursts in front of their juries and some are so heavily medicated that they appear to have no remorse.
EJI believes that executing people with mental illness is cruel and misguided. After more than three decades of research examining whether the threat of a death sentence deters people from committing aggravated murders, there is no reliable evidence that the death penalty deters murder or that it protects police. The National Research Council of the National Academies concluded that studies claiming the death penalty has a deterrent effect are fundamentally flawed. Pepper eds. Studies have shown that murder rates, including murders of police officers, are consistently higher in states that have the death penalty, while states that abolished the death penalty have the lowest rates of police officers killed in the line of duty.
The likelihood of a death sentence or execution depends more on the county where the crime happened than the severity of the offense. But all state taxpayers have to bear the substantial financial costs of death penalty cases in the handful of counties that cling to this outdated and ineffective policy. The death penalty is far more expensive than a system in which life imprisonment without parole is the maximum sentence.
Sophisticated studies at the state level show that the death penalty costs taxpayers more than life without parole. Republicans leading a movement for abolition in some of the most conservative states in the country have condemned the death penalty as an expensive government program that is ineffective in deterring crime.
A nationwide survey of police chiefs put the death penalty last among their priorities for reducing violent crime—below increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy. Surveyed law enforcement officials said they did not believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder, and they rated it as one of most inefficient uses of taxpayer dollars in fighting crime. Use of the death penalty and public support for it are declining. New death sentences have remained near record lows since after peaking at more than per year in the mids.
Executions have declined significantly over the past two decades. Ten of the 22 states that have abolished the death penalty have done so since : New Jersey , New York , New Mexico , Illinois , Connecticut , Maryland , Delaware , Washington , New Hampshire , and Colorado In , California joined Oregon and Pennsylvania in imposing a moratorium on executions. And the near-universal opposition to capital punishment among Democratic presidential candidates signifies a major shift from , when Bill Clinton left the campaign trail to oversee an execution in Arkansas.
We provide information about death sentences and executions in Alabama—including that the state consistently has one of the highest per capita execution rates in the nation.
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Skip to main content Try our corporate solution for free! Single Accounts Corporate Solutions Universities. Premium statistics. Read more. In , 17 death row inmates were executed in the United States. This is a slight decrease from the previous year, when there were 22 executions in the country. However, this is a significant decrease from , when 85 death row inmates were executed. You need a Single Account for unlimited access. Full access to 1m statistics Incl. Single Account.
Around two-thirds of Protestants in the U. Opposition to the death penalty also varies among the religiously unaffiliated. Support for the death penalty is consistently higher in online polls than in phone polls. Survey respondents sometimes give different answers depending on how a poll is conducted. In a series of contemporaneous Pew Research Center surveys fielded online and on the phone between September and August , Americans consistently expressed more support for the death penalty in a self-administered online format than in a survey administered on the phone by a live interviewer.
This pattern was more pronounced among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents than among Republicans and GOP leaners, according to an analysis of the survey results. Phone polls have shown a long-term decline in public support for the death penalty. In phone surveys conducted by Pew Research Center between and , the share of U. Phone surveys conducted by Gallup found a similar decrease in support for capital punishment during this time span. A majority of states have the death penalty, but far fewer use it regularly.
As of July , the death penalty is authorized by 27 states and the federal government — including the U. Department of Justice and the U. But even in many of the jurisdictions that authorize the death penalty, executions are rare: 13 of these states, along with the U. That includes three states — California , Oregon and Pennsylvania — where governors have imposed formal moratoriums on executions. A growing number of states have done away with the death penalty in recent years, either through legislation or a court ruling.
Virginia, which has carried out more executions than any state except Texas since , abolished capital punishment in Death sentences have steadily decreased in recent decades.
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