A year that began with the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the death penalty in Florida ended with the country reaching modern lows in executions and death sentences.
Still, even as capital punishment has declined in both sentencing and practice, there were also signs this year of its support among lawmakers, judges and the public.
The United States saw 20 executions this year, the fewest nationwide in 25 years. This number has dropped from the modern peak of 98 executions in 1999, coming as states have struggled to obtain lethal-injection drugs and halted executions in the face of court rulings.
But that tells only part of the story. There were a total of 30 new death sentences this year, the lowest number in the modern era, according to a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. That is the fewest new death sentences in a single year since 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively halted capital punishment by striking down sentencing statutes. The justices reinstated the death penalty four years later.
To put that in perspective, in 1996, states across the country handed down 315 death sentences, the report states.
The numbers this year are part of "a consistent long-term trend" with a number of explanations, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
"Fewer states authorize the death penalty than in the 1990s," Dunham said. "There are fewer counties in those states that are pursuing capital punishment. Prosecutors in the counties that are pursuing capital punishment are pursuing it less frequently. And juries are returning death verdicts less frequently. The combination of all of these factors has reduced the number of death sentences."
Dunham also pointed to court rulings against the practice, declining public support for it and cases where people on death row have been exonerated as other reasons why the death penalty is being used less often. But Dunham also pointed to outcomes on Election Day last month that he said showed "we are not at the point that the public is willing to dispense with the death penalty entirely."
People in three states -- Nebraska, Oklahoma and California -- were given a chance to vote on the death penalty. In all three cases, capital punishment won out.
Nebraska lawmakers last year voted to abolish the death penalty, making it the 19th state in the country to abandon it, but voters last month decided to scrap that measure. California voters rejected a proposal that would have abolished the death penalty and instead approved one that would quicken the rate of executions -- although a court put that on hold last week. Oklahoma voters gave lawmakers there the ability to adopt "any method of execution not prohibited by the United States Constitution."
But none of those votes mean that executions are likely to resume in those places anytime soon. Nebraska has not executed an inmate since 1997, while California -- home to the country's largest death row -- has not carried out an execution since 2006.
Just five states carried out the country's 20 executions this year, and almost all of them were concentrated in two places: Georgia, which executed nine inmates, and Texas, which executed seven. It was the first year since 1996 in which Texas did not execute at least 10 inmates.
This year marked the first since 1994 that Oklahoma did not carry out any executions, but lethal injections are on hold there after authorities used the wrong drug to carry out an execution last year and then almost used the wrong drug months later.
States have turned to the sedative midazolam and other chemicals because of a yearslong shortage of lethal-injection drugs that has been prompted, in part, by European opposition to the death penalty. This has halted a supply of the chemicals, causing states to revamp their execution protocols -- sometimes multiple times -- to seek new drug combinations to keep carrying out executions.
Drug companies have spoken out in recent years against the use of their chemicals in lethal injections, most recently Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant that in May tightened restrictions on its drugs to further ensure that they cannot be used in lethal injections. In an effort to obtain drugs, Virginia this year moved to shield the identities of those supplying lethal injection drugs, a move that has been undertaken by other states seeking those chemicals.
Days after Florida executed 53-year-old Oscar Bolin Jr. for killing Teri Lynn Matthews in 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death penalty sentencing scheme, which ultimately froze capital punishment in the state for much of the year. The state allowed jurors to render advisory sentences, then gave judges the power to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors before entering sentences of life or death. The Supreme Court said giving judges sole discretion on death sentences violated defendants' Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.
Florida lawmakers rewrote the state's law, and it was promptly struck down again by the state Supreme Court.
On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court said the high court's ruling in Hurst v. Florida meant that potentially hundreds of death-row inmates there could seek new sentences.
"The reason it's declined in Florida is not because the governor doesn't want it to be a top execution state," O.H. Eaton Jr., a death penalty expert and retired Florida judge, said in an interview last week. "It's just that the death penalty's in such flux in Florida that there are no executions scheduled. And I don't think there will be for a while."
A Section on 12/25/2016