Over 400 media outlets around the country reported on DPIC's recent 2011 Year-End Report. Coverage included stories on the dramatic drop in death sentences, the decline in executions, and fewer states having the death penalty. Articles appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, CNN, TIME, and many other papers. National broadcast outlets such as NBC's Nightly News, National Public Radio's Morning Editiion, and CBS Radio ran pieces, and the headline news was noted on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Other coverage appeared on over 100 local radio and TV stations. Among the papers writing editorials on the trends cited in the report were, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Dallas Morning News. The L.A. Times’s editorial noted, “The Death Penalty Information Center's annual report on capital punishment in America, released Thursday, showed that executions continued to drop in 2011, to 43; that's down from 85 in 2000 and 46 last year. More significantly, the number of death sentences across the country fell dramatically this year, to 78 from 112 in 2010. And perhaps most significant of all, the percentage of Americans who say they support the death penalty, which was 80% in 1994, fell to 61%, the lowest ever.” The Washington Post's editorial attributed the decline in death sentences in part to the decreasing confidence in the capital punishment system, noting, “The risk of executing an innocent person must weigh heavily in the debate. There can be no denying that the criminal justice system makes mistakes… Public safety and appropriate punishment for the worst crimes can be achieved through life sentences without the danger of taking an innocent life.” The Dallas Morning News editorial echoed the same hesitation when it comes to the death penalty, saying “The justice system will never be foolproof, and, therefore, use of the death penalty is never justified.”
Professor Victor Streib (pictured) of the Ohio Northern University Law School has published the latest edition of his periodic reports, Death Penalty for Female Offenders. This study offers statistics and information related to women who have been executed or are currently on death row. Among the report’s findings are: 
(On January 10, 
On December 15, the Death Penalty Information Center released its latest report, “
According to a recent study by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia executes the highest proportion of people sentenced to death of any state in the country. Of the 149 death sentences handed down through 2010, 108 have resulted in an execution, a rate of about 72 percent. Virginia is second to Texas in the total number of executions carried out since 1976, but Texas has executed less than half of those sentenced to death. In many states, less than 1 in 10 death sentences have resulted in an execution. Inmates in Virginia also spend the shortest time on death row prior to execution--on average, just 7.1 years--compared to a national average of just over 14 years for those executed in 2009. From the mid-1970s to 1995, just 18% of Virginia death cases were reversed by appeals courts. Nationally, 68% of death cases were reversed in the same time period. According to Richard J. Bonnie, director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, "almost from the beginning, Virginia has basically tried to expedite the process of state post-conviction review and reduce the kinds of claims that can be raised in state courts." As a result, most of the post-conviction review occurs in federal court, particularly the 4th Circuit, which Bonnie described as "reluctant to set aside death sentences." 
