In 2024, for the tenth year in a row, fewer than 30 people were executed (25), and fewer than 50 people were sentenced to death (26), according to the Death Penalty Information Center’s year-end report.
The report notes that:
- Just 10 states sentenced people to death last year, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. Of those 10 states, four accounted for the majority of new death sentences:
- Florida (seven)
- Texas (six)
- Alabama (four)
- California (three)
The remaining six states include Arizona, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, and Tennessee, with one death sentence handed down in each.
Nine death sentences — about one-third of 2024’s total number — were handed down by non-unanimous juries, according to DPIC. Six were imposed in Florida, which requires only eight of 12 jurors to recommend death, and three in Alabama, which requires 10 votes.
The racism, geographic disparities, and wrongful convictions that are emblematic of our broken death penalty system were on full display again in 2024. DPIC reports that:
- 12 of the 25 people executed in 2024 were people of color
- 80% of those executed were convicted of killing a white victim
- 54% of those sentenced to death were people of color
- Of the three death sentences imposed in California, Riverside County accounted for two, and San Bernardino County for one. (The two are among the top five death sentencing counties in the state, with Riverside responsible for sending 86 people to death row, and San Bernardino sending 40 since 1978.)
- There were three death row exonerations in the U.S. last year, bringing the number of people exonerated on evidence of innocence since 1972 to 200.
It appears the American public is increasingly aware of the barbarity and fundamental unfairness of the death penalty as evidenced by a Gallup poll released in November that found that support for the death penalty in the U.S. is at its lowest level — 53% — since the early 1970s. Gallup attributed the decrease to the fact that younger people — those born after 1980 — are less likely to support capital punishment than older Americans. According to Gallup, six in 10 older adults support the death penalty. This survey comes one year after another Gallup poll found that for the first time, more Americans believe the death penalty is applied unfairly (50%) than fairly (47%).