Death chamber one of busiest
Alabama No. 2 in executions in 2007
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
ERIC VELASCO
News staff writer
Alabama's three executions tied for second nationally in 2007, while federal judges halted three other execution dates the state set during an informal nationwide moratorium on putting killers to death, a study shows.

The number of executions in the United States reached a 13-year low in 2007, according to an annual report by the Death Penalty Information Center. New death sentences hit a 31-year valley.

Public support for capital punishment rose slightly to 69 percent in 2007, the report said, citing a Gallup poll.

But one state, New Jersey, abolished the death penalty, and legislatures in three other states came close to following suit. New York also dropped the death penalty after a state court declared it unconstitutional.

"It was quite a momentous year," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based clearinghouse on capital punishment data.

"We had the first state to abolish the death penalty in 40 years," he said. "And although a national moratorium has not specifically been court-ordered, the net effect is all executions are on hold."

The annual study by the Death Penalty Information Center compiles data from a variety of sources, noting trends in the imposition and use of the death penalty, public support and events affecting the issue.

Lethal injections:

No executions have been conducted since the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 25 agreed to hear a challenge to the three drugs Kentucky uses in its lethal injections. With the exception of Nebraska, all of the 38 states and federal jurisdictions with the death penalty use lethal injection.

But while most states voluntarily stopped setting execution dates, federal judges had to step in to halt Alabama's attempts late this year to put to death three of its convicted murderers: James Callahan, Thomas D. Arthur and Daniel Lee Siebert.

In Alabama, the state Supreme Court sets execution dates after the state attorney general certifies that all required appeals have been completed.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Kentucky case next week. A decision is not expected until the end of the court's term in June.

More than 40 murderers were granted stays of execution nationwide because of the lethal-injection challenge, the study said.

"Once the court clears the way for executions to resume, there could be a surge due to that backlog," Dieter said. "But with fewer people coming in to Death Row, the numbers of executions will level off. There seems to be less confidence in the death penalty and less reliance on it. It will remain, but it will be used less."

Other trends noted in the report include:

The annual number of executions dropped 57 percent between 1999 and 2007, when 42 murderers were put to death. In 1999, 98 killers were executed, the most in any year since capital punishment resumed in 1976, four years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all existing death penalty laws and sentences.

Of the 10 states that held executions in 2007, Texas led with 26 executions, 62 percent of the national total. Alabama and Oklahoma each had three executions.

The number of new Death Row inmates was the lowest since 1976. The 110 new death sentences represented a 60 percent reduction from the peak year of 1999.

Alabama's numbers remained steady, with 13 death sentences in both 2006 and 2007, according to state Department of Corrections data. Alabama's death sentences in 2007 accounted for 12 percent of the national total.

More than 3,400 condemned killers are on Death Row nationwide. Alabama's Death Row population of 200 inmates ranks fifth nationally.

Three condemned men were exonerated on appeals or retrials in 2007, one each from Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Carolina. Since 1973, 126 condemned men have been cleared of capital murders.

E-mail: evelasco@bhamnews.com Top states for 2007 executions Texas 26 Alabama 3 Oklahoma 3 Indiana 2 Ohio 2 Tennessee 2 (Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina and South Dakota each had one.) Source: Death Penalty Information Center Top states for executions since 1976* Texas 405 Virginia 98 Oklahoma 86 Missouri 66 Florida 64 North Carolina 43 Georgia 40 Alabama 38 National total: 1,099 * The death penalty was suspended nationwide between 1972 and 1976. Source: Death Penalty Information Center

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