"U.S. executions drop in 2013 as death penalty concerns rise: report," is by Jim Forsyth for Reuters, via the West Central Tribune.
Executions in the United States are decreasing due to concerns about costs, flawed prosecutions and shortages of drugs needed to carry out lethal injections, the Death Penalty Information Center said in a report on Thursday.
There have been 39 executions carried out in the United States in 2013, down from 43 executions in each of the past two years, the group - a well-regarded source of death penalty data - said in its annual report.
The number of people sent to the death chamber has been on a general decline since 1999, when 98 people were executed.
"The realization that mistakes can be made, and innocent people have been freed who could have been executed - that causes jurors to hesitate. Prosecutors know it is harder to get a death sentence," the center's executive director, Richard Dieter, told Reuters.
The American Conservative posts, "Death Penalty Continues Decade-Long Decline," by Jonathan Coppage.
Since Jimmy Carter reinstated Georgia’s death penalty to Supreme Court satisfaction in 1976, capital punishment has been the subject of constant public debate, pitching tough-on-crime conservatives against bleeding-heart liberals against Catholics advancing a seamless pro-life garment. According to the 2013 year end report by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), though, death by execution has undergone a decade-long decline. Executions peaked at 98 in 1999, and death sentences peaked slightly earlier from 1994-1996.
This in part reflects a decrease in violent crime from the dark days of the early 1990s, as the homicide rate has also dropped over the same period. DPIC points, however, that there is a technical reason at least for the decline in actual executions: states can’t get the goods. Because many of the cocktails used in lethal injection are manufactured in Europe, where the death penalty enjoys substantially less favor than here in the United States, Europeans have instituted export bans on drugs for executions. The American Medical Association has also long ruled that “A physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution.”
The Death Penalty Information Center's The Death Penalty in 2013: Year End Report is available at the link. You can also find a news release, infographic, and a video at the link.
Earlier coverage of the report begins at the link.
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