Noting the shrinking of death row in Missouri and elsewhere

This new AP piece details some notable capital punishment data from the Show Me state and eleswhere.  This article’s headline notes its themes: “Missouri’s death row had nearly 100 inmates in the 1990s. Now, it has eight.”  Here are excerpts (with links from the original):

Missouri ‘s status as one of the most active death penalty states is about to change for one simple reason: The state is running out of inmates to execute.

The lethal injection of Christopher Collings on Dec. 3 left just eight men on death row — a figurative term since condemned Missouri inmates are housed with other prisoners. By contrast, nearly 100 people were living with a death sentence three decades ago.

Three of the eight Missouri inmates will almost certainly live out their lives in prison after being declared mentally incompetent for execution.  Court appeals continue for the other five, and no new executions are scheduled.

Missouri isn’t alone. Across the nation, the number of people awaiting the ultimate punishment has declined sharply since the turn of the century….

The Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row USA report showed 2,180 people with pending death sentences this year, down from 3,682 in 2000. Missouri’s peak year was 1997, when 96 people were on death row.

After reaching a height of 98 U.S. executions in 1999, the annual number hasn’t topped 30 since 2014.  So far this year, 23 executions have been carried out — six in Alabama, five in Texas, four in Missouri, three in Oklahoma, two in South Carolina and one each in Georgia, Utah and Florida.  Two more are scheduled: Wednesday in Indiana and Thursday in Oklahoma.

Use of the death penalty has declined in part because many states have turned away from it.  Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have abolished the punishment, and five others have moratoriums.

Even in active death penalty states, prosecutors in murder cases are far more inclined to seek life in prison without parole.  In the 1990s, the nation was typically seeing over 300 new death sentences each year. By contrast, 21 people were sentenced to death nationwide in 2023.