Executions Decrease, Time Between Death Sentencing and Execution Increases

On September 21st, Troy Davis was executed in Georgia despite challenges to the quality of evidence used in his conviction. On the same night, Lawrence Brewer, a member of a white-supremacist gang convicted of brutally killing a black man in 1998, was put to death in Texas. Including these two, there have been 35 executions in America so far this year.The Economist examined trends in death penalty use. Data show a decrease in both death sentences and executions over the past few years. Despite momentary increases, the overall trends of both executions and death sentences have decreased since 1999. In 1999 nearly 300 convicts were sentenced to death and nearly 70 were executed in America. In 2010 the number of death sentences dropped to a little over 50, and the number of executions fell to approximately 50 annually.JVSF cf