Death Rows Emptying?

 From an Anti-Death Penalty website:

"Fewer peo­ple were on death rows across the United States as of July 1, 2021 or faced con­tin­u­ing jeop­ardy of exe­cu­tion in pend­ing cap­i­tal retri­al or resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings than at any oth­er time in more than three decades, accord­ing to data com­piled by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and ana­lyzed by the Death Penalty Information Center. 

In its Summer 2021 edi­tion of Death Row USA (DRUSA), released December 17, 2021, LDF report­ed that the num­ber of peo­ple on state, fed­er­al, or mil­i­tary death rows or fac­ing pos­si­ble cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing across the United States had fall­en to 2,474. It was the first time since the organization’s quar­ter­ly DRUSA cen­sus in April 1991 that few­er than 2,500 peo­ple were on death rows or faced jeop­ardy of being resen­tenced to death. LDF report­ed that 2,457 peo­ple were on U.S. death rows or fac­ing jeop­ardy of resen­tenc­ing at that time. 

The num­ber of peo­ple sen­tenced to death or fac­ing reim­po­si­tion of the death penal­ty in pend­ing cap­i­tal pro­ceed­ings peaked at 3,717 peo­ple in the July 2001 DRUSA report. It has declined by more than a third (33.5%) since then, declin­ing every year for the past two decades"

 

Alabama executed one person in each of the past two years. One execution is scheduled in 2022...Selma resident Matthew Reeves... on Janaury 27th. AL.COM reported in November:

"Reeves, 43, and two others from Selma, including his brother, were convicted of capital murder in the robbery-slaying of 38-year-old Willie Johnson, Jr. in the city in 1996.

Johnson was a public housing employee from Selma who towed Reeves’ broken-down car.

“In payment for this act of kindness, Reeves murdered Johnson, stole his money, and mocked his dying spasms,” U.S. Supreme Court justices wrote in their majority opinion in July upholding an appeals court’s ruling rejecting Reeves’ claim that he had ineffective counsel.

Johnson’s body was found inside his truck on Thanksgiving morning 1996."

In case you missed it, we posted about the 210th anniversary of the first Alabama person executed, before Alabama had even become a state. HERE is that story.