Capital punishment and the imposition of new condemned sentences hit a new low nationwide in 2023, according to the National Reporter.
The Death Penalty Information Center reported a 20-year low that has criminal justice experts rethinking the effectiveness of the death sentence.
“The data shows that most Americans have rejected the death penalty as an expensive, unfair, and ineffective public policy,” said Robin M. Maher, DPIC’s executive director. “These numbers show that most Americans do not believe the death penalty will make them safer or deter future crime.”
The National Reporter noted a recent Gallup survey, which found that 50% of Americans considered capital punishment applied unfairly, while 47% believe it applied fairly. Only 53% of Americans supported the death penalty — the lowest percentage since 1972 — according to Gallup.
The report said that 2023 marked the ninth consecutive year with fewer than 30 executions and fewer than 50 persons newly condemned. Five states carried out 24 executions in 2023 and seven states sentenced 21 persons to death. Executions have halted in 29 states by executive action or by abolishment of the practice.
Court appeals add to the high costs of carrying out executions, said the article. Taxpayers can spend an average of approximately $700,000 more for a capital punishment case. Legal challenges to execution methods and skepticism about racial discrimination have created a decline in the call for the death penalty nationally.
“States are struggling to figure out ways to execute people and it’s part of this larger trend,” said Jeff Kirchmeier, author and law professor at City University of New York School of Law. He said the death penalty has roots in lynching enslaved Black Americans “as a racist mechanism.”
“There’s no argument of a real benefit to having the death penalty,” Kirchmeier told the National Reporter. “It makes [the public] feel better, but most studies show that it doesn’t save lives.”
Critics highlight inaccurate DNA evidence that have resulted in unjust fatal outcomes, the article said. A 2019 report by the National Registry of Exonerations noted that wrongful convictions amount to between 2% and 10%. Some legal experts call the number far too high to justify capital punishment for anyone.
“DNA evidence has made us realize that we make more mistakes on actual innocence than we ever thought we did,” said Maria T. Kolar, an assistant professor at the Oklahoma City University School of Law.
President Joe Biden vowed to abolish capital punishment during his 2019 presidential campaign. His 2020 campaign website promised to “eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example,” stated the National Reporter, but advocates said Biden had not done enough.
The Department of Justice imposed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021, the article said, and has not asked for new death penalty prosecutions, except in the case of the Boston Marathon bomber.
According to the article, Kirchmeier noted that states have a lot of leeway in the way they run their justice systems, as long as they abide by the U.S. Constitution. He added that the federal government has the power to abolish only the federal death penalty.
“There are cases right now … that we have people on death row who don’t deserve the death penalty,” told death penalty advocate GOP Rep. Kevin McDugle to the Associated Press.
Opponents of the death penalty believe the U.S. Supreme Court would not abolish the practice but would approve of the decline of executions. They understand that most jurisdictions do not want to lose that option, the article said.
Angie Setzer, an attorney for the Equal Justice Initiative, called the practice “arbitrary and racially biased.” She told the National Reporter, “The decline of both death sentencing rates and execution rates reflects a general fatigue about the death penalty as a serious component to public safety.”
