Death Penalty Update

The current number of executions in the United States for 2006 stands at 52 with three more scheduled during December. That would bring the total to 55 down 5 from the 60 executions in 2005.

Of the 52 executions, 43 took place in the South, 6 were in the Midwest with 5 in the state of Ohio and 3 were in the West. The Northeast had no executions in 2006.

Fourteen states had at least one execution in 2006. Texas had the most with 24 followed by Ohio with 5. One of the three remaining scheduled executions is also in Ohio which would bring that states total to 6.

Texas already has 11 executions scheduled for 2007 including the execution of a female, Cathy Henderson, in April of 2007. The state of Tennessee, which has only had 2 executions, has 7 executions scheduled in 2007.

In other words, nothing much has changed. The South, with Texas leading the way, continues to be the region of the country where executions are the most common and the Northeast continues to be the region where they rarely occur. As a matter of fact, of the 4 executions that have occurred in the Northeast since 1976, all were of so-called volunteers, individuals that, for whatever reason, ceased appealing their death penalty sentence.

The New Jersey committee studying the death penalty was supposed to have issued its report by November 15, 2006 to the governor and legislature, but I haven’t seen anything to that effect so far. The hope is, of course, that the committee will recommend abolition. We shall see what we shall see.