Special Facilities and Populations - Death Row Inmates
Between 1972 and 1976, states passed new legislation implementing sentencing guidelines and provided procedural safeguards for defendants in response to the Supreme Court's guidance contained in Furman v. Georgia. In Gregg v. Georgia (428 US 453, 1976), the Court held that as implemented under revised laws in Georgia, the death sentence was legal. The Court went further and stated that it was not cruel and unusual punishment per se and argued that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of such punishment did not outlaw the death penalty. It was widely used at the time when the amendment passed; the Constitution also mentioned capital punishment in other contexts.
Executions reached a peak of 199 in 1935 and then began declining. When Furman v. Georgia was decided, the last execution had occurred six years before, in 1966, the only execution in that year. No person was executed between 1967 and 1976. One execution occurred in 1977, a year after the Supreme Court in effect reinstated the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia. After that, executions began to grow year by year and reached a new peak of ninety-eight executions in 1999. (See Figure 10.2.)
The number of prisoners on death row has grown dramatically since the 1970s in part because the Supreme Court's 1972 and 1976 rulings set new boundaries for the administration of capital punishment. Since that time, states have been engaged in a process of modifying their laws. According to Thomas P. Bonczar and Tracy L. Snell in Capital Punishment 2003 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 2002), in 2003 alone, eleven states revised their statutes regarding capital punishment. The most common revision was to prohibit the use of the death penalty in cases involving mentally retarded persons; Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, Utah, and Virginia changed their laws to that effect. The Missouri State Supreme Court ruled that the minimum age for a capital sentence be raised from sixteen years old to eighteen years old.
In 1973 prisoners on death row numbered 134, the lowest number in the 1968–2001 period. The highest number was reached in 2000—3,601. The most recently available count, for 2003, was 3,374. African-Americans on death row exceeded whites in 1968, 271 to 243, showing why the Supreme Court, in its 1972 decision, believed that discrimination may have been present in the administration of the death penalty. (See Figure 10.3.) Beginning in 1976, whites began to outnumber blacks on death row consistently. In 2003, 1,878 death row inmates were white, while 1,418 were African-American, and seventy-eight were of all other races. Proportionally whites (56% of death row inmates) were underrepresented, and African-Americans (42%) were over-represented relative to their share of the population.
Death Row Demographics
During 2003, 144 new prisoners were put on death row while 332 were removed. (See Table 10.8.) Among those removed, sixty-five were executed, ten died (six of natural causes, four by suicide), and 224
FIGURE 10.2
Persons executed, 1930–2003
Persons under sentence of death, by race, 1968–2003
Demographic characteristics of prisoners under sentence of death, 2003
| Prisoners under sentence of death, 2003 | |||
| Characteristic | Yearend | Admissions | Removals |
| Total number under sentence of death |
3,374 | 144 | 332 |
| Gender | |||
| Male | 98.6% | 98.6% | 98.2% |
| Female | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.8 |
| Race | |||
| White | 55.7% | 63.9% | 46.1% |
| Black | 42.0 | 30.6 | 53.3 |
| All other races* | 2.3 | 5.5 | 0.6 |
| Hispanic origin | |||
| Hispanic | 12.5% | 27.0% | 6.2% |
| Non-Hispanic | 87.5 | 73.0 | 93.8 |
| Education | |||
| 8th grade or less | 15.2% | 18.3% | 11.6% |
| 9th–11th grade | 37.1 | 41.7 | 40.4 |
| High school graduate/ | |||
| general equivalency diploma | 38.3 | 35.0 | 37.2 |
| Any college | 9.3 | 5.0 | 10.8 |
| Median | 11th | 11th | 11th |
| Marital status | |||
| Married | 22.5% | 29.1% | 21.9% |
| Divorced/separated | 20.7 | 17.1 | 20.2 |
| Widowed | 2.8 | 4.3 | 3.1 |
| Never married | 54.0 | 49.6 | 54.8 |
| Note: Calculations are based on those cases for which data were reported. Missing data by category were as follows: | |||
| Yearend | Admissions | Removals | |
| Hispanic origin | 416 | 55 | 44 |
| Education | 483 | 24 | 55 |
| Marital status | 333 | 27 | 40 |
| *At yearend 2002, other races consisted of 29 American Indians, 35 Asians, and 14 self-identified Hispanics. During 2003, 3 American Indians, 3 Asians, and 2 self-identified Hispanics were admitted; 1 Asian was removed; and 1 American Indian was executed. | |||
2003). The action meant that those Illinois prisoners formerly awaiting execution would now serve life in prison without parole.
Between 1977 and 2003 a total of 7,061 persons were in prison under a death sentence. However, during this period, only 885 inmates (12.5%) were executed; 2,802 others (39.7%) had their sentences commuted or otherwise had their death sentence removed due to a court ruling. (See Table 10.9.) Since the late 1990s, the number of persons admitted to prison under a sentence of death fell from about three hundred a year to about 150 a year. At the same time, those prisoners on death row who had their death sentences removed rose from under 200 a year to over 300 a year. (See Figure 10.4.)
At the end of 2003, 3,374 persons were on death row, down from 3,562 in 2002. According to Capital Punishment
TABLE 10.9
Executions and other dispositions of inmates sentenced to death, by race and Hispanic origin, 1977–2003
| Race/Hispanic origin | Total under sentence of death, 1977–2003b |
Prisoners executed | Prisoners who received other dispositionsa |
||
| Number | Percent of total | Number | Percent of total | ||
| Total | 7,061 | 885 | 12.5% | 2,802 | 39.7% |
| Whitec | 3,451 | 510 | 14.8% | 1,400 | 40.6% |
| Blackc | 2,903 | 301 | 10.4 | 1,198 | 41.3 |
| Hispanic | 597 | 61 | 10.2 | 167 | 28.0 |
| All other racesd | 110 | 13 | 11.8 | 37 | 33.6 |
| a Includes persons removed from a sentence of death because of statutes struck down on appeal, sentences or convictions vacated, commutations, or death by other than execution. | |||||
| b Includes 7 persons sentenced to death prior to 1977 who were still under sentence of death on 12/31/03; 373 persons sentenced to death prior to 1977 whose death sentence was removed between 1977 and 12/31/03; and 6,681 persons sentenced to death between 1977 and 12/31/03. | |||||
| c Excludes persons of Hispanic origin. | |||||
| d Includes Native Americans and Asians. | |||||
2003, forty-seven of the death row inmates at the end of 2003 were women. Of these, twenty-nine were white, fifteen were black, and three were of other races. California had the largest number (fourteen) followed by Texas (eight) and Pennsylvania (five).
The overwhelming majority of prisoners on death row were men (98.6%). Among men, 1,849 were white, 1,403 were African-American, and seventy-five were of other races. Among all prisoners sentenced to death, 87.5% were non-Hispanic, and 12.5% were of Hispanic origin. (See Table 10.8.)
By educational attainment, more than half of inmates (52.3%) had less than a high school education, 38.3% had a high school diploma or equivalent certification, 9.3% had attended or had graduated from college.
The majority of inmates at the end of 2003 had never been married (54%), 22.5% were married, 20.7% were divorced, and 2.8% were widowed.
Age of Inmates and Time on Death Row
In 2003 nearly half of death row inmates, 49%, had been between twenty and twenty-nine years of age at the time of arrest. (See Table 10.10.) As of December 31, 2003, the two age groups with the largest population under sentence of death were thirty-five to thirty-nine and forty to forty-four. The youngest inmate was nineteen years of age, the oldest eighty-six. The average age
FIGURE 10.4
Admissions to and removals from a sentence of death, 1977–2003
Substantial time elapses between sentencing and the resolution of cases on death row, be it by execution or other forms of "removal." Those executed in 2003 had been in prison an average of ten years and eleven months. The time between sentencing and execution has been lengthening. It was four years and three months between 1977 and 1983 and six years and two months in 1984. For this reason, the age of prisoners at sentencing is about ten years lower than the average age of the population on death row.
Executed Prisoners
As reported in Capital Punishment, 2003, eleven states executed sixty-four prisoners in 2003; the federal government executed one. Of the sixty-five executed prisoners, all were men. In terms of race, forty-one were white, twenty were black, three were white Hispanics, and one was a Native American. Sixty-four executions were by lethal injection; one was by electrocution.
Preliminary data reported by BJS in Capital Punishment 2003 for 2004 (January 1 through December 11) indicate that twelve states executed fifty-nine prisoners,
TABLE 10.10
Age at time of arrest for capital offense and age of prisoners under sentence of death at yearend 2003
| Prisoners under sentence of death | ||||
| At time of arrest | On December 31, 2003 | |||
| Age | Numbera | Percent | Number | Percent |
| Total number under sentence of death on 12/31/03 | 3,117 | 100% | 3,374 | 100% |
| 17 or younger | 67 | 2.1 | 0 | |
| 18–19 | 341 | 10.9 | 1 | b |
| 20–24 | 843 | 27.0 | 133 | 3.9 |
| 25–29 | 687 | 22.0 | 400 | 11.9 |
| 30–34 | 512 | 16.4 | 565 | 16.7 |
| 35–39 | 333 | 10.7 | 582 | 17.2 |
| 40–44 | 177 | 5.7 | 613 | 18.2 |
| 45–49 | 97 | 3.1 | 477 | 14.1 |
| 50–54 | 38 | 1.2 | 297 | 8.8 |
| 55–59 | 16 | 0.5 | 196 | 5.8 |
| 60–64 | 3 | 0.1 | 67 | 2.0 |
| 65 or older | 3 | 0.1 | 43 | 1.3 |
| Mean age | 28 years | 40 years | ||
| Median age | 27 years | 40 years | ||
| Note: The youngest person under sentence of death was a white male in Texas, born in April 1984 and sentenced to death in August 2002. The oldest person under sentence of death was a white male in Arizona, born in September 1915 and sentenced to death in June 1983. Detail may not add to total due to rounding. | ||||
| a Less than 0.05%. | ||||
| b Excludes 257 inmates for whom the date of arrest for capital offense was not available. | ||||
all of whom were men. Within this group, thirty-nine were white, nineteen were African-American, and one was Asian. Fifty-eight were executed by lethal injection; one prisoner was electrocuted.
Thirty-eight states provide capital punishment for murder and, in some instances, for other offenses. California, for example, authorizes capital punishment for train wrecking, treason, and perjury that leads to someone else's execution. Florida and New Jersey have capital punishment for drug trafficking. Louisiana provides for capital punishment for rape of a person under twelve and also punishes treason by death. Mississippi includes aircraft piracy. Twelve states and the District of Columbia do not have the death penalty. States with no death penalty provisions in their laws as of December 31, 2003, were Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The federal government has forty-one laws imposing the death penalty, including espionage, genocide, terrorist murder of a U.S. national in another country, and treason.
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