This morning the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics released this new report with notable national data on the administration of the death penalty in the United States through 2018. As I have noted before, though BJS is often the provider of the best available data on criminal justice administration, in the capital punishment arena the Death Penalty Information Center tends to have more up-to-date and more detailed data on capital punishment. In any event, this new BJS report still provides notable and clear statistical snapshots about the death penalty, and the document sets out these initial "highlights":
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Nineteen states had a decrease in the number of prisoners held under sentence of death from year-end 2017 to year-end 2018, while 2 states and the BOP had an increase.
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Eighteen states and the BOP removed a total of 88 prisoners from being under sentence of death in 2018 by means other than execution.
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In 2018, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the state’s death-penalty law was unconstitutional, and eight prisoners under sentence of death were re-sentenced to life without parole.
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During 2018, Delaware removed its remaining death-row prisoner from a previously imposed death sentence.
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The largest declines in the number of prisoners under death sentences in 2018 were in Pennsylvania and Texas (down 11 prisoners each), followed by Washington (down 8) and then Alabama, Florida, California, and Nevada (down 6 each).
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From year-end 2017 to year-end 2018, the number of prisoners held under sentence of death in Arkansas increased by two, while the BOP and Missouri each increased their number by one.
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At year-end 2018, 56% of prisoners under death sentences were white and 42% were black.
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Among prisoners under a death sentence at year-end 2018 with a known ethnicity, 15% were Hispanic.
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Ninety-eight percent of prisoners under sentence of death were male.
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In three of the four (Census) regions in the country (the West, Midwest, and South), more white prisoners than black prisoners were under sentence of death at year-end 2018.
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The average elapsed time from sentencing to execution almost tripled from 1988 (6.7 years) to 2018 (19.8 years).
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