HOUSTON– The number of executions in the US remained at an all-time low in 2024 and was carried out mainly in a small group of states, including Alabama, which became the first state to use nitrogen gas as an execution method, according to an annual death penalty report. .
The report of the Death Penalty Information Center was released Thursday, the same day Oklahoma carried out the nation’s 25th and final execution of the year. Kevin Ray Underwood was given a lethal injection Thursday morning for the murder of a ten-year-old girl who was part of a cannibalistic fantasy.
“The dramatic decline in new death sentences over the years is, I believe, the most current indicator of attitudes and reflects the public’s growing reluctance to use the death penalty,” said Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Washington DC based non-profit organization. center, which does not take a position on the death penalty, but does criticize the way states carry out executions.
Here’s what you need to know about the use of the death penalty in the US in 2024.
Although the number of executions in 2024 was only one more than the previous year, it was the tenth year in a row with fewer than thirty executions. Four states — Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas — carried out 76% of executions this year, according to the center’s report.
In 2024, there were 26 new death sentences, the tenth year in a row in which fewer than 50 people were sentenced to death.
More than two decades ago, there were more than double the number of executions and more than five times the number of new death sentences, Maher said.
After the Supreme Court lifted the ban on the death penalty in 1976, the number of executions increased steadily, peaking at 98 in 1999. Since then, the number of executions has continued to decline steadily.
“We’re seeing a pretty dramatic decline in the use of the death penalty, especially in states other than your major players,” said Michael Benza, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Benza said that while more states are becoming “de facto abolition states” by not actively carrying out executions, their use remains strong in a small number of states, including Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma and Texas.
“It’s always been kind of a uniquely Southern institution, and that’s becoming more and more the case,” Benza said.
One of these southern states – Alabama – became the first state to use nitrogen gas as a method of execution when it was put to death Kenneth Eugene Smith in January. Alabama used nitrogen to execute two more prisoners September And November.
Some states have continued to search new ways to execute people because the drugs used in lethal injections have become difficult to find.
Only nine states executed individuals in 2024. Seven of these nine states are among the top ten executing states in modern times, according to the report. Three states — Indiana, South Carolina And Utah – resumed executions after long interruptions.
Texas, the nation’s busiest death penalty state, had just five executions in 2024. The number of executions in Texas has fallen to single digits in eight of the past nine years, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, which also released its annual report. report on Thursday.
“While the use of the death penalty in Texas remains historically low, it continues to be imposed disproportionately on people of color and largely depending on geography,” the coalition said in its report.
Missouri has been one of the most active death penalty states, but that is likely to change There are only eight men left on death rowcompared to almost 100 in the 1990s.
While support for the death penalty remains entrenched in Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma, some conservative lawmakers and prosecutors in those states publicly supported efforts to stop several executions.
In Texas, a bipartisan group of lawmakers used an unconventional strategy postpone Robert Roberson’s Execution on October 17: Issuing a subpoena for Roberson to testify days after he was scheduled to die.
Lawyers for an Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossipand prosecutors appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in October to jointly ask that his conviction and death sentence be overturned.
In Missouri, prosecutors and family members of a woman who was fatally stabbed filed an unsuccessful petition Marcellus Williams’ death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.
“We have seen the most public involvement in the past year in cases where the public was outraged by a possible execution,” Maher said.
The Supreme Court continued to retreat from the role it has historically played in regulating and limiting the use of the death penalty, Maher said.
In 2024, the Supreme Court granted only three of 117 requests from prisoners to stay an execution or review claims in a case, the report said. This is similar to what the Supreme Court has done in recent years.
“They have been very active in denying defendants access to justice, but not as active in regulating the state’s use of the death penalty,” Benza said.
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