The worst of the worst.

August 25, 2016 12:33 PM

Where the Death Penalty Still Lives. In the U.S., 20 states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment and four others have imposed a moratorium on executions. Of the 26 states that remain, only 14 handed down death sentences last year for a total of 50 across the country — less than half the number six years before. California, which issued more than one-quarter of last year’s death sentences, hasn’t actually executed anyone since 2006. A new geography of capital punishment is taking shape, with just two percent of the nation’s counties now accounting for a majority of the people sitting on death row.

Across the U.S., the death penalty is on the decline. Only 16 counties among 3,143 have sentenced five or more people to death between 2010 and 2015. They are:

County | # Death Sentences
* Jefferson County, AL | 5
* Mobile County, AL | 8
* Maricopa County, AZ | 24
* Kern County, CA | 4
* Los Angeles County, CA | 32
* Orange County, CA | 9
* Riverside County, CA | 30
* San Bernardino, CA | 5
* Duval County, FL | 16
* Hillsborough County, FL | 6
* Miami-Dade County, FL | 5
* Pinellas County, FL | 5
* Caddo Parish, LA | 5
* Clark County, NV | 9
* Dallas County, TX | 8
* Harris County, TX | 10

Further Reading
* Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC)
* DPIC: States with and without the death penalty

posted by zarq (17 comments total)

Two things about California ---

This year we have another chance to ban the death penalty in California, Prop 62. In 2012 the proposition to ban the death penalty failed 48-52, so it wouldn't take much of a swing to pass this time.

Also, California has only had 13 executions since 1976. So while the death penalty is handed down as a sentence, it is rarely enforced. I still think we should ban it, but there is a big difference between, say, Texas and California in this regard.
posted by thefoxgod at 1:13 PM on August 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

The governor of New Mexico is calling to bring the death penalty back after a police officer was murdered.
posted by BooneTheCowboyToy at 1:22 PM on August 25, 2016

I was going to mention the Proposition on the November California ballot to ban the death penalty, but there's another Prop, #66, that is intended to make it easier to follow through on offing the prisoners by 'simplifying' the appeals process. In California, all kinds of stuff can get on the ballot if you get enough signatures, and based on legal opinions, if both props pass, only the one with more votes will be implemented. There are currently over 700 people on California's Death Row, recently passing the number of death sentences carried out in the state's history.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:29 PM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, thats a good point. In the worst case scenario where 66 passes and 62 doesn't, that "13 since 1976" stat may change significantly.
posted by thefoxgod at 1:35 PM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

The thing you have to remember is that back in the 1930s California and Texas made a bet about which state could become the most hyper-exaggerated version of America — everything good and everything bad about the country all at once, with everything heightened and concentrated and refined — and the two states have been competing ferociously ever since.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:36 PM on August 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

Mod note: Couple comments deleted; let's not do the "the south/Texas/all rural areas are backward/evil/dummies" thing, that doesn't get us anywhere.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:02 PM on August 25, 2016 [9 favorites]

Just a few paragraphs into this article, Angela Corey (previously, yesterday) makes another appearance.

"Other prosecutors in Florida care about mitigating evidence like chronic and serious child abuse," says Steven K. Harper, the executive director of the Florida Center for Capital Representation. "Angela Corey does not."

posted by biogeo at 2:40 PM on August 25, 2016

seems like a small amount of counties nationwide would translate into an effective set of targets for boycotts
posted by pyramid termite at 2:46 PM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sure thing! We all know off the tops of our heads what the main industry of Duval county in Florida is
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:56 PM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sure thing! We all know off the tops of our heads what the main industry of Duval county in Florida is

Execution, apparently.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:18 PM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm wondering whether bringing back the death penalty will be the way that the UK government ends up appeasing the Brexit voters once it becomes clear that the Poles and Lithuanians aren't going to be sent packing. Such a course of action could have a number of political advantages: with the death penalty on the books as an option, the UK cannot, by definition, be part of the EU, regardless of economic facts on the ground. It'd appeal to the tabloid mindset: the fabled politically-correct bureaucratic elites of Brussels would be aghast, and their expressions of horror would be met with predictably robust responses from the Farages and Littlejohns of the UK. Of course, having the death penalty on the books wouldn't necessarily mean killing anyone, at least during the political career of any MP who votes to restore it; a year or two later, a particularly vicious murderer or paedophile would get sentenced to death, which in reality would mean life without parole as the state procrastinates on erecting a gallows or determining what lethal drugs to use and how to source them. A few years later, another convicted criminal is sentenced to death, and then another one, but it'd be well over a decade before whichever administration in power has to start asking around Singapore and Zimbabwe for retired hangmen to train Serco staff in correct use of the Table of Drops.
posted by acb at 5:56 PM on August 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

It will be interesting to see if fiscal conservatism can win out over the visceral satisfaction of the "eye for an eye" sense of social justice that the death penalty appeals to. In order for the death penalty to remain Constitutional, the automatic appeals system that is part and parcel of capital cases is extraordinarily expensive. Adding to the financial case against the death penalty are the practically insurmountable problems that death penalty states face today when trying to obtain drugs to carry out sentences. The legal challenges to the implementation of untried drug cocktails must have already cost some states a pretty penny to defend against. Of course, there's always the chance that proponents of the death penalty can appease the fence-sitters among the electorate with promises of much cheaper and, arguably, more humane executions that use bullets or gas.

I personally don't care why or how people decide that the death penalty is no longer worth the trouble just so long as it eventually becomes a thing that no one does. The American criminal justice system is an inherently flawed human institution that will continue to execute the innocent and the neuroatypical until the practice is ended.
posted by xyzzy at 6:04 PM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

The problem in California is that Prop 66 is basically trying to negate the "fiscal conservative" argument against the death penalty by "streamlining" the process. This UC Berkeley poll shows support for 66 is high and 62 is low. If that remains, then California will be increasing its executions this year, sadly.

Without 66 maybe 62 would do better, but 66 is being sold as an alternative way to reduce the "cost". Slogans like "Mend the death penalty, don't end it".
posted by thefoxgod at 6:16 PM on August 25, 2016

"Mend the death penalty, don't end it"

The gangrenous limb can be saved! Just remove the dead tissue and keep pumping it full of antibiotics!

Jesus Christ just lose it already. It's been an absolute disaster and miscarriage of justice since the first asshole thought it up.
posted by Talez at 6:26 PM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

If that remains, then California will be increasing its executions this year, sadly.

I would be shocked if any attempt to "streamline" the DP appeals process doesn't result in a legal challenge that travels up to SCOTUS. But yeah, "mend don't end" types of appeals are the ones that I'm afraid will continue this fight into the foreseeable future.
posted by xyzzy at 6:27 PM on August 25, 2016

Yeah, I should say that California would have voted to increase executions / use of the death penalty. Hopefully it would be stopped somewhere, and if Clinton wins maybe we can hope the SCOTUS it ends up at is a liberal one that would potentially be more hostile to the death penalty.

I was excited by Prop 62 given how close we came in 2012, but seeing the Berkeley poll pretty much eliminated that. Especially since oneswellfoop's comment seems to be true, the general agreement is that even if 62 passes, if 66 gets more votes it effectively overrules 62. And 66 is way ahead in polling.

I also had a little hope here in LA County (which apparently leads the nation in death sentences) after Steve Cooley was replaced, but Jackie Lacey is a big fan of the death penalty as well.
posted by thefoxgod at 6:35 PM on August 25, 2016

Of course, there's always the chance that proponents of the death penalty can appease the fence-sitters among the electorate with promises of much cheaper and, arguably, more humane executions that use bullets or gas.

There are drugs that would reliably kill a person, and which are easy enough to obtain; morphine, for example. The problem is, dying of a morphine overdose is altogether too pleasant a way to go to be supported by those who believe in capital punishment.
posted by acb at 3:57 AM on August 26, 2016 [1 favorite]