In cases with multiple defendants, the "worst" offender does not always receive the worst punishment. For example, in Arizona, Patrick Bearup (pictured) was the only one among four co-defendants to receive the death penalty, even though he was not directly involved in killing the victim. The other three defendants, one of whom instigated the offense, another of whom beat the victim with a baseball bat, and a third who shot the victim, were able to secure plea bargains, avoiding trial. Two of them are likely to be released within 15 years. According to Dale Baich of the federal public defender's office in Arizona, of the six inmates executed there in 2012, four were equally or less culpable than their co-defendants, and 3 of those 4 co-defendants have already been released. A judge who reveiwed Bearup's case, criticized the prosecutor for pursuing the death penalty against a man who “even under the state’s theory, did not cause the physical death” of the victim. The judge nevertheless upheld the death sentence. In another Arizona county, the prosecutor announced the county could only afford one death penalty case at a time, thereby ending a capital prosecution in an egregious murder, while pursuing it in a comparable case. Christopher Dupont, a lawyer in Arizona said, “Do people who commit equally heinous crimes get the same results? The answer is unquestionably no. It’s a total mystery who is going to face the death penalty and who is not.”
Since the 1990s, almost every death penalty state has experienced a dramatic decline in its annual number of death sentences. DPIC has prepared a series of graphs illustrating this trend in each state: 
Virginia’s death row population has significantly decreased from a peak of 57 inmates in 1995 to 8 presently. Only two inmates have been added to death row in nearly five years. David Bruck (pictured), director of the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse at Washington and Lee University School of Law, remarked, "The process has largely ground to a halt. That is a huge development." He suggested the decline in death sentences is due to a greater acceptance of alternative punishments and the realization that mistakes can be made in capital convictions. Bruck said the DNA-based exoneration and freeing of 
The theory of the death penalty is that prosecutors select offenders who have committed aggravated murder and obtain death sentences for the most heinous offenders through a scrupulous trial with full due process. The reality in Pennsylvania is radically different. Hundreds of inmates have been sentenced to death, but of the cases that have completed the appeals process, 100% have been overturned, mostly because of errors in the conviction or sentencing stages. (Three inmates were executed, but they waived their appeals; the rest of those sentenced to death remain on death row, continuing their appeals.) Moreover, when these cases are submitted for re-trial, presumably with the errors corrected, almost all (95%) receive a sentence less than death (and some are freed completely). These statistics, collected by Robert Dunham, Adjunct Professor at Villanova Law School, reveal a capital-case selection process that is seriously flawed and a trial process that is rampant with error. From a cost perspective, this is extremely wasteful: every death sentence is a result of an expensive trial and appeal; nevertheless, almost all of these cases ultimately result in a life sentence after even more proceedings. Eleven percent (11%) of the cases requiring a re-sentencing were resolved as less than first-degree murder.
DPIC's recent 
A new report on the death penalty in Texas found that death sentences have declined by more than 75% since 2002, and more than half of all new death sentences were imposed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area this year, while no new death sentences were imposed in Harris County (Houston) for the third time in five years. The report, “
No new death sentneces were imposed in North Carolina in 2012, marking the first time since 1977 that this has occurred. The state had a record-low of four capital trials in 2012. Thomas Maher, executive director of North Carolina’s Indigent Defense Services, said, “In some ways, it’s a milestone. In other ways, it’s part of a trend.” In 2000, juries in the state presided at 57 capital trials, ultimately yielding 18 death sentences. In 2011, there were 12 capital trials resulting in 3 death sentences. North Carolina has not carried out an execution since 2006. This declining use of the death penalty is in line with a broader national trend. In 2011, there were 78 new death sentences in the U.S., a 75% drop from 1996, when 315 individuals were sentenced to death. It was the first time since 1976 that the country produced fewer than 100 death sentences in a single year.