USA - Death Penalty Information Center has publisher the "Year Report"

Death sentences handed down by judges and juries in 2009 continued a trend of decline for seven years in a row, with 106 projected for the year. That level is down two-thirds from a peak of 328 in 1994, according to the report being released today by the Death Penalty Information Center, a research organization that opposes capital punishment. The number of new death sentences handed down fell to the lowest total since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
"This entire decade has been marked by a declining use of the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, the executive director of the group.
The sentencing drop was most striking in Texas, which averaged 34 death sentences a year in the 1990s and had 9 this year. Vic Wisner, a former assistant district attorney in Houston, said a "constant media drumbeat" about suspect convictions and exonerations "has really changed the attitude of jurors."
Mr. Wisner said that while polls showed continued general support for capital punishment, "there is a real worry by jurors of, 'I believe in it, but what if we later find out it was someone else and it's too late to do anything about it?”.
The trend of decreased death sentences was especially noticeable in Virginia, which is 2nd only to Texas in the number of inmates executed. Even as the commonwealth put to death its most infamous death row inmate, Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad, its courts were sentencing fewer murderers to death.
Virginia averaged 6 death sentences a year during the 1990s, according to the report by the center, which favors the abolition of capital punishment. But only 1 person has been sentenced to death in the commonwealth this year, according to the report, and only 6 others have been sent to death row in the 5 preceding years.
While death sentences are in decline, executions rose in the past year, according to the new report. 52 prisoners have been put to death in 2009, compared with 42 in 2007 and 37 in 2008.
The report also noted that in 2009 New Mexico became the 15th state to repeal the death penalty, in part because of budget considerations and the high cost of death penalty appeals, which Gov. Bill Richardson called "a valid reason" for eliminating the ultimate sanction "in this era of austerity and tight budgets."
Experts suggested that the rise in executions was due to last year's relatively low number, as states grappled with the implications of a major 2008 Supreme Court decision on lethal injection. In that case, Baze v. Rees, the court ended what amounted to a moratorium of several months, beginning in 2007, on lethal injection executions by proclaiming that the procedure used in Kentucky and other states with similar methods did not violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
52 inmates were executed this year. As in previous years, Texas in 2009 led the states in executions, with 24 - 4 times as many as the next-highest, Alabama.
It is in the South that the death penalty is most often prescribed and carried out. Nearly 90 % of the 52 executions this year took place in the region, with nearly half of those in Texas.
11 states are now considering abolishing executions, with many legislators citing high costs associated with incarcerating and handling often decades-long appeals by death row inmates.
Among high-profile cases:
- John Allen Muhammad, convicted as the so-called "Beltway Sniper," responsible for at least 10 killings in the sniper-style killings around the Washington, D.C. area and three other states in 2002. He was executed in Virginia in November.
- Kenneth Biros, who became the 1st person executed in the U.S. using a single-drug lethal injection. A 3-drug cocktail has been used nationwide for years by corrections officials, but no complications were reported with the new method. He was executed in Ohio on December 8.
Executions had been delayed in Ohio this fall, after the botched execution attempt of Romell Broom, which raised serious questions about the state's lethal injection procedures. Those procedures were changed but Broom remains on death row. He is appealing his sentence.
Executions are on hold in California, Maryland, Kentucky and the federal system, pending challenges to lethal injection procedures. Earlier in the year, Nebraska became the last death penalty state to formally switch over to lethal injection as the main form of capital punishment.
The legislature had abandoned electrocution, which had been the sole method, but final protocols have yet to be approved for future executions.
9 men who had been sentenced to death were exonerated and freed in 2009, most after new DNA or other forensic testing cleared them, or raised doubts their culpability. That is the 2nd highest total since the death penalty was reinstated 33 years ago.
In Georgia, supporters of Troy Davis have urged retesting of forensic evidence to prove his innocence in the 1989 murder of a Savannah police officer. The Supreme Court in August granted a stay and ordered a federal court to re-examine his claims. The high court said the risk of putting a potentially innocent man to death "provides adequate justification" for another evidentiary hearing.
New Hampshire's House of Representatives voted to abolish lethal injection, which would currently affect only 1 inmate on the state's death row. The measure is pending in the state Senate, but the governor has vowed to veto any bill. An execution has not been conducted there in 70 years, when hanging was the preferred method.
35 states still have the death penalty.