Executions and new death sentences continued their sharp nationwide decline in 2008 as states wrestled with legal, moral and financial concerns about capital punishment.
Thirty-seven people were executed in nine states, the lowest total in 14 years and a 62 percent drop from the 98 death sentences carried out in 1999, according to statistics compiled by the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
A total of 111 death sentences were handed down, the fewest since executions resumed in 1976, according to the center, a repository of reports and research on capital punishment run largely by opponents.
The total declined from 115 in 2007 and was barely a third of the numbers condemned each year in the 1990s.
The economic realities of cash-strapped state and local governments have undermined capital punishment where moral and legal arguments have failed to alter majority support for the death penalty, said Richard Dieter, a Catholic University law professor and director of the information center.
“I don’t know that it will change public opinion, but the practical effects of the economy are just that — if you’re a politician and you have to cut something, do you want fewer police officers on the streets . . . or do you cut one death penalty and save a few million dollars?” Dieter said. “At a time when states are cutting back on teachers, police officers, health care, infrastructure and other vital services, citizens are increasingly concerned that the death penalty is not the best use of their limited resources.”
A Gallup poll in October showed 64 percent support for capital punishment. But even in Texas, where 18 of the 37 executions occurred last year, the number of death sentences issued has declined by half over the past decade.
Nationally, at least 25 scheduled executions were stayed in 2008, four death-row inmates were exonerated and another four had their sentences commuted to life.
The exoneration and release of the four prisoners from Texas, Mississippi and North Carolina brought to 130 the number of death-row inmates cleared by DNA evidence or investigations undertaken by death-penalty opponents such as the Innocence Project.
