Abatement of capital punishment continues in U.S.



By Carol J. Williams
Los Angeles Times
Posted: 12/31/2008

Executions and new death sentences each continued their sharp 
nationwide decline in 2008, as states wrestled with legal, moral and 
financial concerns about capital punishment.
Thirty-seven people were executed in nine states, the lowest total in 
14 years and a 62 percent drop from the 98 death sentences carried 
out in 1999, according to statistics compiled by the nonprofit Death 
Penalty Information Center.
A total of 111 death sentences were handed down, the fewest since 
executions resumed in 1976, according to the center, a repository of 
reports and research on capital punishment run largely by opponents. 
The total declined from 115 in 2007 and was barely a third of the 
numbers condemned each year in the 1990s.
The economic realities of cash-strapped state and local governments 
have undermined capital punishment where moral and legal arguments 
have failed to alter majority support for the death penalty, said 
Richard Dieter, a Catholic University law professor and director of 
the information center.
"I don't know that it will change public opinion but the practical 
effects of the economy are just that — if you're a politician and you 
have to cut something, do you want fewer police officers on the 
streets "... or do you cut one death penalty and save a few million 
dollars?" Dieter said. "At a time when states are cutting back on 
teachers, police officers, health care, infrastructure, and other 
vital services, citizens are increasingly concerned that the death 
penalty is not the best use of their limited resources."

A Gallup poll in October showed 64 percent support for capital 
punishment. But even in Texas, where 18 of the 37 executions occurred 
last year, the number of death sentences issued has declined by half 
over the past decade. In New Mexico, the state Supreme Court ruled 
last year that death penalties couldn't be pursued unless the 
Legislature budgeted adequate funding for legal representation of 
condemned inmates who cannot afford attorneys. Utah judges also 
signaled that they would overturn death penalties for convicts 
inadequately defended.
New Jersey and New York dropped the death penalty in 2007, and a vote 
expected early this year in Maryland on whether to abolish capital 
punishment has been driven in part by taxpayers' sticker shock at 
reports that each of the five executions there cost about $37 million.
In California, home to one in five of the country's condemned 
prisoners, prosecutors are wary of seeking death penalties when life 
without parole accomplishes the objective of keeping killers off the 
street. San Quentin's death row, the nation's most populous, 
continued to grow last year, with 21 new capital judgments swelling 
the ranks of condemned prisoners to 677. Executions were suspended 
for legal review of the state's lethal injection procedures and 
reconstruction of the idled death chamber.

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_11347387?nclick_check=1