American's Losing Their Taste For The Death Penalty

     Annual U.S. executions peaked at 98 in 1999 before steadily declining, the Death Penalty Information Center reports. With public support waning, executions fell to 17 in 2020, including 10 federal executions, the first in 17 years.

     Likewise, capital cases and convictions have decreased. In the mid 1990s, U.S. courts imposed more than 300 death row sentences a year; last year the number dropped to 18.

Greg Row and Robert Dunham, August 2021