Death Penalty in Deep Decline, Texas Executes Third Prisoner this Year, Death Penalty Focus, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, Sustainable Action Network (SAN), Second Chance for Death Verdict & Calls To Ban Death Penalty for people Under 21!

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) recently released its annual death penalty report, and their findings were incredibly encouraging. Death sentences, executions, and support for the death penalty are either at or near historic lows. The death penalty has also been increasingly relegated to a super minority of states and counties, as most localities eschew its use.
In 2017, there were unfortunately 23 executions, but this total was the second lowest in about a quarter century. Moreover, roughly 75% of these executions occurred in only 4 states. The overwhelming majority of states simply do not execute inmates.
There were an estimated 39 death sentences delivered last year, which is the second lowest number in the modern era. Over 30% of these came from just 3 counties, while the other 3,140 counties accounted for the remaining 27 death sentences. This is further evidence that capital punishment is being confined to a few, isolated locations.
The death penalty’s decline can also plainly be seen in what was once considered capital punishment’s epicenter – Harris County, TX. More people have been sentenced to die there than in any other county in the U.S., but in 2017, no person was sentenced to die or executed from Harris County. It appears that Texans are also moving away from capital punishment. 
Support for the death penalty is also sagging. The most recent Gallup poll found it to be the lowest in 45 years. The poll also showed that Republican support for capital punishment fell 10 points in a single year, which means that Republicans’ approval of the death penalty is the lowest it has been since before 1988. 

There are other signs of the death penalty’s decline. According to our report, The Right Way, Republican legislators are increasingly championing efforts to repeal the death penalty. In fact, in the year 2000, there were only 4 Republican death penalty repeal sponsors, and for the next 12 years, that number never rose above single digits. But by 2013 – the year CCATDP launched – that number surged to 20.  By 2016, it peaked at 40 Republican death penalty repeal sponsors. Republican momentum to end capital punishment is real, and it is clearly gaining steam.
It’s been a busy few weeks, with the ABA addressing the issue of minors being sentenced to death, the introduction of a federal bill that would change sentencing in capital trials, and the revelation that the use of ethnic adjustment by death penalty prosecutors is still prevalent. States including Texas, California, Ohio, and Alabama continued to tinker with the machinery of death, and we have a profile of a London woman who’s shining a light on San Quentin’s death row artists.

ABA Calls for an End to the Death Penalty for Those 21 and Younger

Citing “a growing medical consensus that key areas of the brain relevant to decision-making and judgment continue to develop into the early twenties” the American Bar Association this week called for death penalty states to rule out executing or sentencing to death anyone 21 years of age or younger.
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New Bill Seeks to Give Federal Prosecutors a Second Chance for Death Verdict

Four U.S. Senators introduced a bill this week that would allow federal prosecutors in death penalty cases to impanel a second jury for sentencing if the first jury fails to reach a unanimous vote for death
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Texas Executes Third Prisoner this Year

Texas executed John Battaglia last week, the third person executed this year, and the second in that week.

The Injustice of "Ethnic Adjustment"

He first sounded the alarm about prosecutors’ use of ethnic adjustment in capital trials two years ago, and now death penalty attorney Robert M. Sanger says the practice is still going strong in spite of recent SCOTUS rulings on intellectual disability.

CDCR’s New LI Drug Protocol as Flawed as the Previous One

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s revised lethal drug protocol doesn’t address the problems that plagued its previous versions.

In Brief: February 2018

From Ohio to New Mexico, state officials continue to tinker with “the machinery of death.”
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While We’re on the Subject . . .

There was no shortage of interesting reading material on criminal justice issues in the past month. From the New York Times to Reason magazine, the death penalty in the U.S. continues to be a topic of discussion.
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Voices: Nicola White

A London-based artist whose work is created from the fragments of wood, glass, pottery, and other artifacts she finds on the banks of rivers in London, she is ensuring that the art and literature she finds on San Quentin’s death row get the exposure they deserve.
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