Use Of Death Penalty Continues Its Decline In The United States

When Nebraska abolished the death penalty this year, we said that the trial of Eric Frein, who is accused in the ambush murder of state police Cpl.

This year, states and the federal government imposed 49 death sentences, according to a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center examining the year for capital punishment.

This drop in executions might be explained by uncertainty hanging over whether the Supreme Court would declare many executions unconstitutional in Glossip v. Gross, the decision that ultimately bolstered the penalty’s legal status.

Despite a reputation for being hard line, Florida has reached an 11-year low in the number of death sentences handed down, according to a new report.

The numbers reflect a steady decline in death sentences over the past 15 years and a broad shift in public attitudes that has made capital punishment increasingly rare, said Robert Dunham, the group’s executive director. Only six states (Texas, Missouri, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, and Virginia) conducted executions in 2015, the lowest in 27 years.

This year was the first in 24 years that the number of executions fell below 30. But capital punishment supporters this summer collected enough signatures to put a hold on the repeal until Nebraskans decide whether it should stand or whether the state should continue to allow the death penalty. At the same time, the state’s use of the death penalty has also declined. Six death-row prisoners were cleared of all charges this year. The 28 executions is half of what it was two decades earlier.

Lethal injection is by far the method most used since 1976, according to the report, followed by electrocution, gas chamber, hanging and firing squad.