Executions, Death Sentences Decline.

"Gov't: Executions, Death Sentences Decline By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 14 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051113/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/death_penalty;_ylt=AqMkjglw5qDDc0SH8Bd6yIys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

WASHINGTON - The ranks of people sentenced to death and the number executed declined in 2004 as the nation's death row population kept shrinking, the government reported Sunday.

Last year, a dozen states executed 59 prisoners, six fewer than in 2003, according to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The report also said 125 people, including five women, who were convicted of murder received a death sentence last year. That was the smallest number since 1973.

Last year, 22 death row inmates died of natural causes or committed suicide, while an additional 107 had their sentences commuted, tossed out or overturned. As of Dec. 31, there were 3,315 people on death row, compared to 3,378 a year earlier.

Tracy Snell, one of the report's authors, said the number of prisoners under death sentences has declined four years in a row, the result of a murder rate now at its lowest level in 40 years.

One death penalty advocate said the threat of harsh punishment is responsible for that falling rate.

"There are less murders, less murder victims and less death sentences because, in our view, we have been giving this problem the right medicine," said Michael Rushford, president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, Calif.

"Most states have effective habitual offender laws. These laws take the most likely group of potential capital murderers off the street," said Rushford, whose public interest law group works "to strengthen law enforcement's ability to assure that crime does not pay," according to its Web site.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, said jurors increasingly are reluctant to recommend the death penalty.

He cited recent cases where death row prisoners have been freed following media or legal investigations; the use of DNA evidence to exonerate those wrongly convicted; and the increased availability of life-without-parole sentences as an alternative to capital punishment.

"The thing that stands out to me is the breadth of the decline," said Dieter, whose group has been critical of how the death penalty is applied. "I think if it were just one year or one of those numbers, it would be less consequential. What we're witnessing is a pullback from the death penalty across the country."

Today, 37 of the 38 states with death penalty laws allow juries to consider life without parole as an alternative. That option may come to have a large effect in Texas, which in 2004 executed 23 prisoners, or more than three times as many death row inmates than any other state. A Texas law that took effect Sept. 1 allows capital murder juries to consider life-without-parole for convicted offenders.

California had the largest death row, with 637 inmates at the end 2004. California, Florida and Texas together account for 44 percent of the nation's death row population, according to the report.

The report also said:

_The 59 inmates executed in 2004 had spent an average of 11 years on death row.

_Of those executed, 36 were white, 19 black and three Hispanic, and one was Asian. One inmate was electrocuted; the rest were put to death by lethal injection.

_Ten federal prisoners were sentenced to death in 2004, or twice as many in any year since 1973.

_Fifty-two women were on death row, five more than a year earlier.

_The oldest death row inmate was 89; the youngest was 18.

_Preliminary data show that this year 13 states had executed 49 inmates as of Nov. 9, or seven fewer than during the same period a year earlier. "

The fact that some death row inmates have time to die of natural causes or actually commit suicide is a sign that its taking too damn long to stick them with the needle...

If you have to kill someone do it in Texas where the express lane still exists!

Too much money is wasted on killers... I say hang em high before sunset after sentencing!

Actually, I would prefer to send them to a commune in ANWAR to grow giant pumpkins and cabbage. Let the money gained by the loosers support the victims survivors kin. Killers make good mosquito food too another good reason to send them to ANWAR not to mention they would support the wolf population if they tried to excape. Fuck em!