WASHINGTON: Executions in the United States this year fell to their lowest point in two decades, the Death Penalty Information Center said yesterday. Looking back on 2014, the watchdog group reported 35 executions in seven states, “the fewest number put to death since 1994”.
The past year also saw 72 death sentences handed down — a 40-year low and the fourth straight year in which there were fewer than 100 such sentences.
Botched executions involving lethal injections in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona, and the outcry they provoked, also contributed to the decline, it said.
Missouri, Texas and Florida represented 80 percent of executions in 2014, followed by Oklahoma, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, Alabama and Virginia.
The number of inmates on death row, which stood at 3,035 on October 1, also fell, continuing a trend going back to 2001.
AFP
