Watchdog group says courts are issuing fewer death sentences

A study by the Death Penalty Information Center shows that the number of court-imposed death sentences has dropped substantially in recent years as more juries opt instead for life in prison.

The Washington-based group said 116 innocent people have been released from death row since 1973, making juries reluctant to issue death sentences if they are not convinced the capital punishment system is fair.

“The issue of innocence and the powerful personal stories that have thrust this crisis into the public eye have done more to change the death penalty in this country than anything,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the center. “Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty,” was released Sept. 15. It said cases involving inadequate legal counsel, judicial misconduct and access to advanced DNA testing had freed people from death row. The report showed 143 death sentences issued last year, the lowest number since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. During the 1990s, an average of 290 people were sentenced to death, but that figure has averaged 174 since 2000. Death penalty supporters and prosecutors argue the report’s figures are high, saying there are really  20–30 exonerations annually. “You’re talking about an extremely small, microscopic number,” Ward Campbell, supervising deputy state attorney general in Sacramento, Calif., told the New York Times.                           

(RNS)