Fewer Inmates on Death Row in 2001; Decline Is First Since 1976

WASHINGTON —  The number of death-row prisoners dropped last year for the first time since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, the Justice Department reported Sunday. The decline was part of a trend that has seen fewer people sentenced to die in recent years.

The death-row population fell from 3,601 in 2000 to 3,581 in 2001, the first year-to-year decrease in 25 years.

Last year’s total of 155 was the lowest number sentenced to die and put on death row since 1973. It was the third straight year of declines.

The number of death sentences imposed last year compares with 303 in 1998 and 319 in 1996, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Sixty-six people were executed last year, compared with 85 the year before.

Through Dec. 11 of this year, 68 people have been executed.

Death-penalty experts say juries and prosecutors appear to be exercising greater care in using the death penalty, particularly considering recent cases in which DNA evidence has proved that people were wrongly convicted.

More prosecutors also appear to be accepting plea bargains in which a defendant accepts a sentence of life without parole.

“There is more selective use of the death penalty going on,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, a capital-punishment research group. “The key issue, which is disturbing to people, is that they’ve seen inmates who may have been close to execution walk off from death row.”

The government figures show that 63 men and three women were put to death last year, all by injection.

The racial breakdown was 48 whites, 17 blacks and one American Indian.

A death-row inmate is most likely to have previous felony convictions, never been married and have no more than a high-school education, the statistics show.

Only 10% have attended college.

Oklahoma executed the most people in 2001, with 18, followed by 17 put to death in Texas and seven in Missouri.

In all, executions were carried out last year by 15 of the 38 states that have a death penalty.

The federal government executed two men, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh and drug lord and murderer Juan Raul Garza.

Preliminary statistics for this year show that Texas has conducted 33 of the 68 executions nationwide.