In what year did Texas reinstate the death penalty after a national moratorium on this type of punishment?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week announced a moratorium on executions in his state, a move that will affect 737 inmates on the largest death row in the country. The decision marks a significant change in policy, but not in practice: California is one of 11 states that have capital punishment on the books but have not carried out an execution in more than a decade.

Overall, 30 states, the federal government and the U.S. military authorize the death penalty, while 20 states and the District of Columbia do not, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an information clearinghouse that has been critical of capital punishment. But more than a third of the states that allow executions – along with the federal government and the U.S. military – haven’t carried one out in at least 10 years or, in some cases, much longer.

California’s last execution took place in 2006. The other states that have capital punishment but haven’t used it more than a decade are New Hampshire (last execution in 1939); Kansas (1965); Wyoming (1992); Colorado and Oregon (both 1997); Pennsylvania (1999); Montana, Nevada and North Carolina (all 2006); and Kentucky (2008).

The last federal execution happened in 2003. And while the military retains its own authority to carry out executions, it hasn’t done so since 1961.

There are wide variations in the number of people who are on death row in the 11 states and federal entities that have the death penalty but haven’t used it in at least a decade. While California has more than 700 people on death row, New Hampshire has only one. (New Hampshire’s state House of Representatives this month voted overwhelmingly to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without parole, but it’s unclear if the bill will become law. Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed a similar effort last year.)

Nationally, the number of death row inmates fluctuates almost daily as new death sentences are imposed, executions are carried out and prisoners die of other causes or otherwise leave death row, including through exoneration.

California’s death row has grown by nearly 100 inmates, or 14%, since January 2006, when it carried out its last execution, and by 28% since 2000, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which tracks death row populations in all states. (The most recent available data for all states are as of October 2018.) The increase reflects the fact that California juries have continued to sentence convicted defendants to death, even as executions themselves have been on hold in recent years amid legal and political disputes that predated Newsom’s formal moratorium.

One stark reflection of the longtime suspension of capital punishment in California is that executions are the third most common cause of death for those on death row, following natural causes and suicide, according to data from the state’s corrections department. Just 15 of the 135 California death row inmates who have died since 1978 were executed.

The federal government’s death row has also grown substantially since the last federal execution. There are currently 62 federal inmates sentenced to death, up from 26 in January 2003 (just before the federal government’s most recent execution).

The increases in the number of people on death row in California and at the federal level run counter to the national trend. Nationwide, the number of inmates on death row fell 26% between 2000 and 2018, from 3,682 to 2,721, according to the NAACP’s figures.

A variety of factors explain this decrease. For one thing, 892 executions were carried out between 2000 and 2018, including 359 in Texas alone, according to a database compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. Many other death row prisoners have died of other causes. Another 81 were removed from death row between 2000 and 2018 because they were exonerated, whether by acquittal, dropped charges or pardons. And the number of new defendants sentenced to death has declined sharply, from 223 in 2000 to just 42 last year.

Legal and political factors have played a prominent role in several of the states that have the death penalty but have not carried out an execution for 10 years or more. In California, courts struck down the state’s lethal injection protocol in 2006, and the state did not propose a replacement method until years later. In 2016, California voters approved a ballot initiative intended to speed up the death penalty process, but Newsom said this week that no executions will occur in the state while he remains governor.

California is not the only state whose governor has declared a moratorium on executions even as capital punishment remains on the books. The governors of Oregon and Pennsylvania, for example, have also suspended executions in their states.

Nationwide support for the death penalty ticked up in 2018, according to a Pew Research Center survey. A narrow majority of U.S. adults (54%) said they support the death penalty for those convicted of murder, compared with 39% who opposed it. But support for capital punishment remains much lower than in the 1990s or throughout much of the 2000s.

Note: This is an update to a post originally published Aug. 10, 2018.

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State & Local GovernmentDeath PenaltyCriminal Justice

Attorney General William P. Barr has directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to adopt a proposed Addendum to the Federal Execution Protocol—clearing the way for the federal government to resume capital punishment after a nearly two decade lapse, and bringing justice to victims of the most horrific crimes.  The Attorney General has further directed the Acting Director of the BOP, Hugh Hurwitz, to schedule the executions of five death-row inmates convicted of murdering, and in some cases torturing and raping, the most vulnerable in our society—children and the elderly.

“Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President,” Attorney General Barr said.  “Under Administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers, each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair proceeding.  The Justice Department upholds the rule of law—and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”

The Federal Execution Protocol Addendum, which closely mirrors protocols utilized by several states, including currently Georgia, Missouri, and Texas, replaces the three-drug procedure previously used in federal executions with a single drug—pentobarbital.  Since 2010, 14 states have used pentobarbital in over 200 executions, and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have repeatedly upheld the use of pentobarbital in executions as consistent with the Eighth Amendment.

Upon the Attorney General’s direction, Acting Director Hurwitz adopted the Addendum to the Federal Execution Protocol and, in accordance with 28 C.F.R. Part 26, scheduled executions for the following individuals:

• Daniel Lewis Lee, a member of a white supremacist group, murdered a family of three, including an eight-year-old girl. After robbing and shooting the victims with a stun gun, Lee covered their heads with plastic bags, sealed the bags with duct tape, weighed down each victim with rocks, and threw the family of three into the Illinois bayou.  On May 4, 1999, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas found Lee guilty of numerous offenses, including three counts of murder in aid of racketeering, and he was sentenced to death.  Lee’s execution is scheduled to occur on Dec. 9, 2019.
• Lezmond Mitchell stabbed to death a 63-year-old grandmother and forced her nine-year-old granddaughter to sit beside her lifeless body for a 30 to 40-mile drive. Mitchell then slit the girl’s throat twice, crushed her head with 20-pound rocks, and severed and buried both victims’ heads and hands.  On May 8, 2003, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona found Mitchell guilty of numerous offenses, including first degree murder, felony murder, and carjacking resulting in murder, and he was sentenced to death.  Mitchell’s execution is scheduled to occur on Dec. 11, 2019.
• Wesley Ira Purkey violently raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl, and then dismembered, burned, and dumped the young girl’s body in a septic pond. He also was convicted in state court for using a claw hammer to bludgeon to death an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio and walked with a cane.  On Nov. 5, 2003, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri found Purkey guilty of kidnapping a child resulting in the child’s death, and he was sentenced to death. Purkey’s execution is scheduled to occur on Dec. 13, 2019.
• Alfred Bourgeois physically and emotionally tortured, sexually molested, and then beat to death his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. On March 16, 2004, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas found Bourgeois guilty of multiple offenses, including murder, and he was sentenced to death.  Bourgeois’ execution is scheduled to occur on Jan. 13, 2020.
• Dustin Lee Honken shot and killed five people—two men who planned to testify against him and a single, working mother and her ten-year-old and six-year-old daughters. On Oct. 14, 2004, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa found Honken guilty of numerous offenses, including five counts of murder during the course of a continuing criminal enterprise, and he was sentenced to death.  Honken’s execution is scheduled to occur on Jan. 15, 2020.

Each of these inmates has exhausted their appellate and post-conviction remedies, and currently no legal impediments prevent their executions, which will take place at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Indiana.  Additional executions will be scheduled at a later date.