U.S. executions reach 14-year low

Thirty-seven people were executed in nine states, the lowest total in 14 years and a 62% drop from the 98 death sentences carried out in 1999, according to statistics compiled by the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

A total of 111 death sentences were handed down, the fewest since executions resumed in 1976, according to the center, a repository of reports and research run largely by opponents of capital punishment. The total declined from 115 in 2007 and was barely a third of the numbers condemned some years in the 1990s.

The economic realities of cash-strapped state and local governments have undermined capital punishment where moral and legal arguments have failed, said Richard Dieter, a Catholic University law professor and director of the center.

"I don't know that it will change public opinion, but the practical effects of the economy are just that -- if you're a politician and you have to cut something, do you want fewer police officers on the streets . . . or do you cut one death penalty and save a few million dollars?" Dieter said. "At a time when states are cutting back on teachers, police officers, healthcare, infrastructure and other vital services, citizens are increasingly concerned that the death penalty is not the best use of their limited resources."

A Gallup poll in October showed 64% support for capital punishment. But even in Texas, where 18 of the 37 executions occurred last year, the number of death sentences has declined by half over the last decade.

In New Mexico, the state high court ruled last year that death penalties couldn't be pursued unless the Legislature budgeted adequate funding for legal representation of condemned inmates who could not afford their own lawyers. Utah judges also signaled that they would overturn death penalties for convicts inadequately defended.

New Jersey dropped the death penalty in 2007, and a vote expected early this year in Maryland on whether to abolish capital punishment has been driven in part by taxpayers' sticker shock at reports that each of the five executions there since 1976 cost about $37 million.

Even in California, home to one in five of the country's condemned prisoners, prosecutors are wary of seeking death penalties when life without parole accomplishes the objective of keeping killers off the street.