WASHINGTON (AP) – Three states resumed executions of death row inmates in 2018 after long breaks, but nationwide, executions remained near historic lows this year, according to an annual report on the death penalty released Friday.
The report by the District of Columbia-based Death Penalty Information Center says 25 executions were carried out in 2018, the fourth consecutive year in which there have been fewer than 30 executions nationwide.
Since the death penalty was re-instated in the United States in 1976, the number of executions peaked in 1999 with 98. They were at their lowest in 2016 with 20, according to center statistics. Americans’ support for the death penalty similarly peaked in the 1990s and has declined since, according to public opinion polls by Gallup. A 2018 Gallup poll showed 56 percent of Americans supported the death penalty for a person convicted or murder.
Executions in 2018 were clustered in eight states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas. About half of all the executions in 2018 took place in Texas, which carried out 13 death sentences. Tennessee was second with three. Alabama, Florida and Georgia each had two while Nebraska, Ohio and South Dakota each carried out one.
Florida’s execution Thursday of Jose Antonio Jimenez for fatally beating and stabbing a woman during a burglary was the most recent. According to a list maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center, there are no other executions scheduled this year.