Study: Death sentences reach record low

Economics play a part, an attorney who hopes the ultimate penalty will be abolished says.

Nationwide last year, courts handed down fewer death sentences than at any time since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, according to a survey by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Continuing a long and precipitous decline in the number of death sentences, the trend has sparked hope among some death-penalty opponents that the practice might not have to be abolished formally.

Might it eventually fall into disuse, even if it remains officially on the books?

"Personally, I would say no," answered Jim Rowan, an Oklahoma City attorney and chairman of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "There will have to be some legislative action."

The number of death sentences nationwide peaked at 328 in 1994. Since then, the number has plummeted more than 66 %, with 106 death sentences handed down in 2009, according to the survey.

Oklahoma averaged nearly 11 death sentences a year during the 1990s but has averaged fewer than 6 a year since 2000.

Why the decline?

The laws of economics, Rowan explained. As costs go up, demand falls. He estimates that in prosecuting a homicide, the state of Oklahoma will spend 3 times more money seeking the death penalty than if it were asking for life in prison.

The costs, of course, could be lowered by shortening the appeals process.

But that would only increase the risk of executing an innocent person, Rowan countered.

"In Oklahoma, we have 10 people walking around who were sentenced to death and later exonerated," he said. "I don't think we want to trade an innocent life for efficiency."

With fewer people sentenced to death, executions have generally declined, as well. Nationwide, 52 people were put to death last year roughly 1/2 the number seen a decade ago.

Oklahoma carried out 3 executions in 2009, the 4th-highest number for any state, behind Texas, Alabama and Ohio.

This year, the state has put to death 1 person.

Tulsa killer Julius Ricardo Young was executed Thursday in connection with the 1993 slayings of his ex-girlfriend's 20-year-old daughter and the daughter's 6-year-old son.

Meanwhile, 2009 saw 9 death-row inmates including 2 in Oklahoma set free after courts overturned their convictions.

That ranks as the 2nd-highest number of exonerations since the death penalty was reinstated.

Since the mid-'70s, 139 death-row inmates have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which advocates banning capital punishment.

In October, Yancy Douglas, 35, and Paris Powell, 36, were set free from Oklahoma's death row after a key witness recanted his testimony against them.

They had been convicted of killing a teenage girl during a drive-by shooting in Oklahoma City more than 15 years ago.

Executions last year in Oklahoma

Jan. 22: Darwin Demond Brown, 32, was executed for the 1995 beating death of Tulsa convenience store clerk Richard Yost. Based on surveillance tapes, prosecutors estimated that Yost was hit 54 times with a metal baseball bat and then left in the store's walk-in cooler to die.

In his final statement, Brown apologized "for anybody I hurt.

May 14: Donald Lee Gilson, 48, was executed for the 1998 murder of his girlfriend's 8-year-old son, Shane Coffman, whose body was found in rural Cleveland County. In his final statement, Gilson proclaimed, "I'm an innocent man." But witnesses described seeing Gilson beat the boy on the day the child died.

July 9: Michael P. DeLozier, 32, was executed for shooting to death 2 campers, Orville Lewis Bullard, 60, and Paul Steven Morgan, 54, during a 1995 robbery along the Glover River in southern Oklahoma.

In a written statement shortly before his execution, DeLozier admitted to the murders and said, "I cannot wait to finish paying this debt I owe."

Source: Tulsa World, January 16, 2010