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A recent editorial in the Washington Post cited trends and statistics from DPIC's 2008 Year End Report in calling for an end to the death penalty in Maryland.  The paper urged Maryland lawmakers to "heed the march of history" and noted that use of the death penalty is declining around the country: "According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that studies capital punishment, executions nationwide reached a 14-year low in 2008, with only 37 executions carried out, compared with 42 in 2007. A full 95 percent of these executions took place in Southern states, with Texas once again earning the dubious distinction as leader of the pack, with 18 executions -- or nearly 50 percent of all executions in the country."  The editorial also cited recent findings from the bipartisan Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, noting that it found “clear cut evidence that capital punishment in the state neither deters crime nor provides a sense of closure for victims’ families.” 

The full editorial may be found below:

The Death Penalty Information Center's Year End Report for 2008 recorded 37 executions for the year that ends today.  That is a 12% drop from the 42 executions in 2007.  However, based on executions already scheduled for 2009, the coming year may see an increase.  There are 23 executions scheduled for the first five months of 2009, and more dates are likely to be added.  As was true in 2008, almost all the executions scheduled are in the south and about half (12 of 23) are in Texas.  Although the time between sentencing and execution has grown longer, the size of death row has remained relatively stable and many inmates are running out of appeals.

The top medical officer for the Department of Corrections in the state of Washington has resigned in order to avoid any participation in the state's execution process.  As the doctor responsible for preparing others to carry out lethal injections, Dr. Marc Stern concluded that his ethical obligations as a physician required that he recuse himself from such actions and that resigning was the only way to fully remove himself from this process. Dr. Stern, who supervised 700 employees around the state, said that the American Medical Association and the Society of Correctional Physicians oppose physician involvement in executions, "and they say physicians should not supervise somebody who is involved in executions."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a $14 million award to John Thompson, a former death row inmate in Louisiana who was exonerated after withheld evidence was revealed.  Thompson spent 18 years in prison, including 14 years in the solitary confinement of death row in Angola Prison.  He came within one month of being executed in 1999 when his attorneys discovered blood evidence that should have been turned over to the defense years ago.  The new evidence cleared Thompson of an armed robbery conviction, which in turn had influenced his trial for an unrelated murder.  At his re-trial on the capital murder charge, Thompson was acquitted in thirty-five minutes by a jury in 2003.  Thompson sued the District Attorney's Office of Orleans Parish in 2003 and won a jury verdict in 2007.  The jury also awarded $1 million for attorneys' fees.

Compared to the 1990’s, there has been a marked decline in death sentences in the U.S. since 2000. Every region of the country and every state that averaged one or more death sentences per year have seen a decline in the annual number of death sentences. The chart below compares the annual number of death sentences in each state in the 1990s with the 2000s. North Carolina, California, Florida, and Texas experienced the greatest declines in sentencing.  This issue and others are addressed in the Death Penalty Information Center’s Year End Report, released December 11, 2008.