Who killed the death penalty?
Many suspects are implicated in capital punishment’s ongoing demise. But one stands out
EXHIBIT A is the corpses. Or rather, the curious paucity of them: like the dog that didn’t bark in Sherlock Holmes, the bodies are increasingly failing to materialise. Only 28 prisoners have been executed in America in 2015, the lowest number since 1991. Next, consider the dwindling rate of death sentences—most striking in Texas, which accounts for more than a third of all executions since (after a hiatus) the Supreme Court reinstated the practice in 1976. A ghoulish web page lists the inmates admitted to Texas’s death row. Only two arrived in 2015, down from 11 the previous year.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Who killed the death penalty?”
From the December 19th 2015 edition
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