The Death Penalty on Life Support - Miller-McCune
Forty years ago, Americans’ moral qualms almost ended the death penalty. Now we’re abandoning it again — but not because we object to executions.
(Editor’s Note: The Connecticut Legislature voted today to abolish the death penalty for all future cases, becoming the fifth state in the last four years to do so. The following is a piece written by Vince Beiser for the upcoming debut issue of Pacific Standard. It explores the reasons why the death penalty is falling out of favor.)
You may have noticed something about the debate over the death penalty in the presidential race: there’s hardly been one. That speaks volumes about how this persistent institution is quietly fading away in the U.S. — for the second time in history.
Most Americans support capital punishment, in principle. That majority, however, has shrunk from 80 percent in 1994 to 61 percent today. And when faced with actually using the ultimate sanction, the country is increasingly squeamish.
The number of death sentences imposed by judges and juries has plummeted to record lows. Last year’s total was 78, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center — down from a high of 315 in 1996, and the smallest annual total in decades. Only 43 inmates were executed last year, half the number of a decade ago. Meanwhile, Illinois became the fourth state in as many years to abolish executions, joining New Mexico, New Jersey, and New York.
But Americans aren’t abandoning the death penalty because of an upsurge in concern over taking killers’ lives. Thanks largely to DNA testing and other technological advances, an estimated 140 condemned men and women have been exonerated in recent years. Proof that the system can fail so badly has made juries, judges, prosecutors, and the public wary of exacting the ultimate punishment.
Forty years ago, when the U.S. briefly abolished capital punishment, it was for very different reasons. Consider Robert Page Anderson. A small-time lowlife with a lengthy rap sheet, Anderson walked into a San Diego pawnshop one morning in 1965, picked out a rifle from the gun display, loaded it, and shot the store’s two clerks. One died instantly. When police cars pulled up in front of the store, Anderson grabbed a few more guns, barricaded the doors, and started blasting. What ensued was the biggest firefight ever on the streets of San Diego. In its course, a journalist dropped dead of a heart attack, Anderson wounded a cop, and then was shot by another.
A black man who shot a white cop and killed a storekeeper would, at most times in American history, have found himself on a fast trip to death row. But Anderson had the good fortune to have committed his crime when Americans were turning against the death penalty to an unprecedented extent.