source: Workers World

first published: 19 January 2023

Image Credit: Donald Tong at www.Pexels.com

It is a slow and painful death, but executions in the U.S. are going to die! The death penalty is gasping its last breaths as even Republicans are condemning it these days.

The big picture of capital punishment is that the United States is moving away from the death penalty. Here are some new facts:

• For the first time in the U.S., a majority of people believe that the death penalty is applied unfairly, according to an October 2023 Gallup Poll
• Twenty-six states, a slim majority, have either abolished the death penalty (23) or have a moratorium on executions in place (3)
• In 2023, only five states conducted executions and seven states imposed new death sentences, the lowest numbers in 20 years
• There were three people exonerated on death rows in 2023, bringing the total number of exonerations to 195 since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976

Texas was one of just five states to carry out executions in 2023, but led the country with eight people put to death. The other four states were Alabama (2), Florida (6), Missouri (4) and Oklahoma (4).

Even in Texas, which leads the U.S. with total 586 executions, change is coming. Death sentence convictions have fallen from a high of 48 in 1999 to three people sent to death row by Texas juries in 2023. Convictions with a death sentence have been in single digits for the past nine years in Texas. 

Virginia made history in 2021 when it became the first former Confederate state to abolish the death penalty. Now two other former Confederate states, Kentucky and Missouri, along with Ohio, have bills to abolish the death penalty before their legislatures.

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