Across the country, the death penalty is disappearing and eroding. This year, two states put to death no inmates. Six died on death row, and dozens came close to being executed before being exonerated. The study released on September 12 refutes any assumption of bias against racial minorities. However, it raises significant concerns about the overall quality of the system.
Death Rates
Death row statistics in the USA are significantly higher than in most other countries that use the death penalty. This reflects a combination of factors: For example, the rate of people being sentenced to death is far higher than in most other countries, and some of those convicted end up dying while waiting for their executions to be carried out. Additionally, several death row prisoners are pardoned or have their convictions overturned. Finally, several countries that apply the death penalty hide detailed execution-related data from the public, which makes it difficult to determine exact death rates. Overall, the average time an inmate spends on death row is about 22 years, which is much longer than in other countries that use capital punishment. The number of people who stay on death row continues to drop each year as more former death-row inmates are resentenced to life in prison or less, die from non-execution causes, or leave through commutations that are added each year. Age-adjusted death rates increased in 2021 compared to 2020 for Black males and Hispanic females, decreased for White males, and remained statistically unchanged for White females. These rates are also affected by misclassification of race and ethnicity on death certificates, which can lead to under- or overestimation of death-rate trends. In addition, decisions to seek the death penalty by U.S. Attorney offices are shielded from information about a defendant’s race and ethnicity so that this data does not directly inform decisions about whether to seek the death penalty.
Expenditures
Whether the killers on death row are rapists like David Dickerson, who shot his mother in the head and left her body mutilated in a freezer in Kansas, or serial murderers like Lisa Jo Chamberlain, who murdered and injured two people, the crimes of those behind bars come with a high price tag for taxpayers. A recent study commissioned by the Judicial Conference of the United States found that federal court costs start to soar as soon as prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty. The cost of capital cases is higher because defendants are afforded additional constitutional protections, their trials are longer because of the possibility of execution and a desire by those involved to get it right, they require more expert witnesses who often command higher fees, and prosecutors must pay for specialized DNA analysis. In addition to increased attorney and expert fees, DPIC estimates that capital trials use more courthouse resources than non-capital ones because they have strict experience requirements for defense attorneys, which can result in lengthy appellate wait times while capable counsel is sought, and prosecutors must pay more for specialized witnessing equipment that makes sense of complicated DNA evidence. Moreover, it costs more to house inmates who have been sentenced to death, who are housed on their own in segregated sections of prisons in single cells and receive extra security services and utilities.
Race of Victims
The race of victims plays a significant role in the decisions to seek the death penalty. Studies have shown that prosecutors are far more likely to recommend the death penalty when the victim is white and are far less likely to seek it for victims of minorities. This is true in both state and federal trials. As a result, murderers who kill white victims are more than three times as likely to be sentenced to death as those who kill minorities, and the death penalty is virtually always applied to men rather than women. In addition to the racial bias that exists in capital sentencing, socio-economic status can also impact whether someone gets the death penalty. People who are poor or from working-class backgrounds are more likely to be targeted by prosecutors, and they often don’t have the resources necessary to mount a strong defense. These factors are often more pronounced in cases involving minorities and members of the LGBTQI community.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund publishes a quarterly report called Death Row USA, which contains data and other information on prisoners who are awaiting execution. It includes states’ death penalty populations, convictions and commutations, and other capital punishment statistics. The reports are available as Adobe PDF downloads. The number of inmates on death row changes frequently due to new convictions, appellate decisions overturning a conviction or sentence, and commutations.
Public Support
While a majority of Americans continue to support the death penalty, partisan divides are widening over the issue. About twice as many Republicans as Democrats now favor it. Among those with at least some college education, opinions are more split: Two-thirds of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher support it, while about half of those with less formal educational attainment do so. In the years since the 1994 crime bill, the number of people sentenced to death has increased dramatically. But so have the costs of capital trials, which are more complex and lengthy than those in other criminal cases. Arbitrary influences, such as where a trial is held (and attendant local prejudices) and the offender’s race or other characteristics, can play significant roles in prosecutor decisions to seek death sentences and jury verdicts. In addition, a growing number of states have enacted laws restricting when the death penalty may be used and the kinds of offenses for which it can be applied. These include requirements that a person have been convicted of murder or other violent crimes to be eligible for the death penalty, requiring prosecutors to provide evidence that the offender committed the crime to seek the death penalty, and prohibiting executions where the offender has a severe mental illness, as ruled unconstitutional in 2002 by the Supreme Court in Thompson v. Oklahoma.
