U.S. States with the Death Penalty

Is Capital Punishment Alive and Well in 21st Century America?

Nov 5, 2009

Most states still have a death penalty. But even in those states, death sentences and executions are becoming rare. Is this a trend toward abolition of the death penalty?

Capital punishment, a punishment for particularly heinous felonies that some state legislators feel warrant a death penalty, remains a valid sentence for criminals in more U.S. states than not. In March 2009, New Mexico became the 15th state, along with the District of Columbia, to abolish the death penalty.

In the remaining 35 states, capital punishment is alive but not always well. Executions have declined over the last decade. The courts of some states, such as New York and Nebraska, have ruled that their former death penalty laws or procedures violate their state constitutions without specifically disavowing any means for the death penalty to return in some other legislative incarnation.

Powerful feelings and impassioned voices drive the arguments to uphold the death penalty's implementation or to abolish it from state law. Opinions go far beyond liberal and conservative boundaries, touching one's senses of justice and morality, fairness and balance, humanism and ideology.

For the spirited few who take up action for either side of the equation, it helps to know which states are pro death penalty and which states are against it.

States with the Death Penalty

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit, up-to-date compendium of all death penalty news, research, statistics, books, and most other resources related to capital punishment, the following states (a considerable majority) still have a death penalty:

Nebraskan legislators recently voted to retain the death penalty. However, the state currently lacks any legal method of executing prisoners. Both the United States' government and the Armed Forces can sentence prisoners to death.

States without the Death Penalty

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the minority of U.S. states have abolished the death penalty. These states are against the death penalty (with dates of their abolition of capital punishment):

The New York Court of Appeals has ruled that the state's death penalty laws are unconstitutional. The state's legislature has voted against subsequent attempts to resurrect the death penalty. Joining the above list of states that have abolished the death penalty is the District of Columbia.

Whether one advocates for or against the death penalty, its actual imposition is on the decline. State courts that impose death sentences can only do so where criminals are convicted of murder. Prior to 2008, a few states, including Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Montana, arguably allowed capital punishment in cases involving the rape of a child. Louisiana was the only state to actually impose the death sentence in two such cases. However, the applicable Louisiana statute was stricken as excessive punishment, thus violating the Eighth Amendment, by the U.S. Supreme Court in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (2008). The two Louisiana criminals were not executed.

Execution for murder, too, is down. According to Kavan Peterson's April 19, 2005, article, "Death Penalty: 34 States Permit Execution," the number of executions peaked in 1999. By 2005, death sentences had dropped by 54%. Also in 2005, juveniles were protected from execution by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005).

According to the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney's webpage, Texas leads the charge when it comes to killing killers. From January 1, 1976, to April 1, 2008, Texas executed 405 convicted felons, more than four times as many as the next capital punishment-friendly state, Virginia (98 executions). Of a total 1,099 executions, 57% (630) were Caucasian and 34% (377) were African American. Only 11 females were executed during this time frame. Since 1930, there have been nearly 5,000 executions in the United States.

Current Status of the Death Penalty?

Like it or not, the death penalty remains in most states. Yet, according to Peterson, the trend "by lawmakers and the judiciary over the past 30 years [is] to narrow the scope of the death penalty by tightening state sentencing statutes and banning the execution of specific groups of people, including the mentally insane, severely retarded and juvenile defendants." As Peterson says, "a majority of Americans still support executions as the ultimate punishment, and the nation as a whole is far from abolishing the death penalty."

The copyright of the article U.S. States with the Death Penalty in Law, Crime & Justice is owned by Jason Parent. Permission to republish U.S. States with the Death Penalty in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.