WASHINGTON, Nov 29: The United States will likely reach this week the grim milestone of 1,000 executions of convicts since 1976, although capital punishment is declining with fewer juries choosing death sentences.
A convicted murderer was put to death by lethal injection in Arkansas on Monday, making him the 998th executed inmate since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment 29 years ago.
Executions were scheduled in Ohio and Virginia this week, making the 1,000th execution likely as early as Wednesday.
Robin Lovitt, a convicted murder, could become number 1,000 late Wednesday in the prison of Jarratt, Virginia, if the Ohio execution is not postponed, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
“The impending milestone occurs at a time when the country is sharply moving away from the use of the death penalty,” according to DPIC.
“The 1000th execution is a significant event in the nation’s 30-year experiment with capital punishment, but it is not indicative of an expanding or strongly endorsed use of capital punishment,” said DPIC director Richard Dieter.
“To the contrary, there is a wealth of evidence that the country is pulling back from the death penalty,” Dieter said.
Statistics show a 50 percent decline in the number of death sentences since the late 1990s and a drop of 40 percent in executions since they peaked at 98 in 1999. There were 59 executions last year.
Moreover, the number of inmates on death row — the prison wing for prisoners awaiting execution — has declined each year since 2001.
Last month, a Gallup poll showed that 64 percent of Americans remain in favour of capital punishment, although 80 percent backed it in the 1990s.
The death penalty has also come under fire since inmates facing execution have been found innocent after their convictions, unmasking flaws in the judicial system. In the last 32 years, 122 death row inmates have been released.
Former Illinois governor George Ryan triggered a heated debate in January 2003 when he cleared the state’s death row after learning of various cases in which innocent people were sentenced to die.
“More and more people understand that the death penalty makes mistakes, disproportionately affects the poor and people of colour, doesn’t deter crime, and is expensive, arbitrary, and immoral,” according to 1000executions.org, an Amnesty International website.—Reuters
