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Use of Death Penalty Continues to Decline in the U.S.

Loaded on Aug. 15, 2022 by Douglas Ankney published in Criminal Legal News September, 2022, page 50
Filed under: U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, Death Penalty. Location: United States of America.

by Douglas Ankney

In 2021, 11 people in the U.S. were killed as punishment for their crimes. This was the fewest number of Americans in recent history to be subjected to state-sanctioned killing. And it was the seventh consecutive year that fewer than 30 people were executed in the name of justice.

There seems to be no desire to reverse the downward trend in spite of an uptick in homicides and violent crimes during the COVID pandemic. Twenty-three states no longer kill people as punishment for their crimes.

Governor Gavin Newsome also has a moratorium halting executions of any of California’s 699 men and women being held for slaughter on death row. In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown has continued the moratorium begun in 2011. And in 2019, the Oregon Supreme Court retroactively applied a law that limits the death penalty to four types of aggravated murder: (1) terrorist acts that kill two or more people, (2) premeditated murder of children, (3) prison murders by people already incarcerated for murder, and (4) premeditated murder of prison guards.

President Joe Biden promised during his campaign to end the federal death penalty. While Congress has yet to pass any law to end the barbaric practice of executing people, there have been no sanctioned federal killings of prisoners during Biden’s reign.

The only aberration to the decline in judicial killings occurred during President Trump’s killing spree. The last six months of his promised quest to “make America great again” saw 13 federal killings of defenseless people caged on death row.

(Note: Also, for 2021, the Death Penalty Information Center reports that more than $78 million was paid in court awards and settlements to people wrongly sentenced to death due to police and prosecutor misconduct—with $75 million awarded to half-brothers Henry McCollum and Leon Brown who were exonerated via DNA of rape-murder after spending 31 years on death row.) 

Source: reason.com

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  1. Speed Trap Gold Mine, by Jayson Hawkins
  2. Indirect DNA Transfer Can Result in Miscarriages of Justice, by David Reutter
  3. Manhattan DA Launches Conviction Review Unit, by Jayson Hawkins
  4. New Jersey Supreme Court Announces Framework for Determining Constitutionality of Warrantless Protective Sweep of Home Where Arrest Is Made Outside the Home, by Douglas Ankney
  5. SCOTUS Holds AEDPA’s Restrictions on Habeas Relief Trump Federal Courts’ Authority Under All Writs Act, by Dale Chappell
  6. FBI Gets New Mass Surveillance Tool, by Jayson Hawkins
  7. Federal Habeas Corpus: Taking an Appeal After the Denial of Habeas Relief, by Dale Chappell
  8. First Circuit Announces ‘Knowingly’ Violating § 922(g)(9) Requires Proof Defendant Knew He Belonged to Category of Persons Prohibited from Possessing Firearms, Mere Knowledge of ‘Features’ of Prior Offense Insufficient, by Richard Resch
  9. How Many Federal Crimes Are There?, by Casey Bastian
  10. Vaccine Passports Raise Privacy Issues and Create a Class of Undesirables, by David Reutter
  11. First Circuit: Procedurally Unreasonable for District Court to Base Upward Variance on Defendant’s Prior Arrests, by Douglas Ankney
  12. SCOTUS Holds Attempted Hobbs Act Robbery Not a ‘Crime of Violence’ Under a § 924(c)(3)(A), by Dale Chappell
  13. Outdated Wiretap Law Gives Feds Easy Access to Metadata, by Anthony Accurso
  14. Law Enforcement Refuse to Admit Most Forensic Science Is Junk Science, by Casey Bastian
  15. California Court of Appeal: Exclusion of Expert Witness at SVP Trial as Remedy for Discovery Violation Constitutes Denial of Constitutional Due Process, by David Reutter
  16. California Court of Appeal: Assembly Bill 124 Applies Retroactively and Includes Psychological Trauma Based Upon Mental Illness as Mitigating Factor Under § 1170(b)(6), by Harold Hempstead
  17. Sixth Circuit Announces Full, Unconditional Pardon, Regardless of Issue of Innocence, Meets Heck Requirement of Invalidated Conviction; § 1983 Claims May Be Pursued, by Harold Hempstead
  18. FBI Forces Suspect to Unlock Messaging App Using FaceID, by Anthony Accurso
  19. Colorado Supreme Court Announces Courts Not Required to Address All 11 Brown Factors in Ruling on Defendant’s Motion for Continuance to Change Counsel, by Harold Hempstead
  20. California Court of Appeal: New Law Requiring Bifurcated Trial on Gang Enhancements Applies Retroactively, by David Reutter
  21. New Jersey Supreme Court Announces ‘Non-Transparent’ for Purposes of Tinted Window Violation Justifying Traffic Stop Means Front Windows Dark Enough That Police Can’t Clearly See People or Items Inside Vehicle, by Anthony Accurso
  22. SCOTUS Announces Judge’s Error of Law Constitutes ‘Mistake’ for Purposes of Reopening a Case Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(1), by Dale Chappell
  23. Sixth Circuit: Government Cannot Withdraw Consent to Lesser Included Charge After Defendant Pleaded Guilty but Court Reject Plea Agreement, by David Reutter
  24. New Jersey Supreme Court: Defendant Did Not Voluntarily Waive Privilege Against Self-Incrimination Because Police Persistently Contradicted and Undermined Significance of Miranda During Interrogation, by Richard Resch
  25. Connecticut Supreme Court Announces Trial Courts, Prospectively, Must Canvass Defendants Who Seek to Waive Right to Testify to Ensure Waiver Is Made Knowingly, Intelligently, and Voluntarily, by Anthony Accurso
  26. Missouri Supreme Court: Defendant Entitled to ‘Castle Doctrine’ Jury Instruction Even Though Assailant Not Unlawfully in Vehicle at Very Moment of Use of Deadly Force, by Harold Hempstead
  27. Minnesota Supreme Court Announces Expanding Scope of Traffic Stop to Investigate Occupant’s Pretrial Release Conditions Violates Minnesota Constitution, by Douglas Ankney
  28. Sixth Circuit Reverses Denial of First Step Act Relief Because Sentence Imposed Is Substantively Unreasonable, by Douglas Ankney
  29. San Francisco DA’s Inaugural Innocence Commission Frees Its First Victim of Wrongful Conviction, by Keith Sanders
  30. Inextricably Intertwined: The Practice of Negotiated Pleas and the Rise of Mass Incarceration in America, by Casey Bastian
  31. News in Brief
  32. Use of Death Penalty Continues to Decline in the U.S., by Douglas Ankney
  33. $670,000 Awarded to Use Virtual Reality to Evaluate Eyewitness Accuracy, by Jacob Barrett

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