In 2015, 31 states have the death penalty, plus the federal government and the military. Nebraska is the last state to abolish the death penalty. And it’s the first traditionally conservative state to do so. Before that, Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, Connecticut in 2012 and New Mexico in 2009. However, these states did not make the law retroactive. For example, there are still inmates awaiting execution in New Mexico and Connecticut, even though those states no longer sentence anyone to death. Notably, the state of Michigan has not had the death penalty for the longest time. It was abolished in 1846 and never reinstated. California and Florida have the largest populations of death row inmates. As of mid-2015, the last execution in Florida took place in January 2015. California, however, has not executed anyone since 2006. One of the last people executed in California was Stanley Tookie Williams, who had contributed to start the street gang. , the Crips. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In 1979, Tookie participated in a few robberies that left four people dead. While on death row, Williams became an anti-violence advocate, writing children's books against gangs and violence. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was executed in 2005 after spending nearly 25 years on death row. Since California has not executed anyone since 2006, California voters voted in 2012 to repeal the death penalty, due to the high cost the state was spending for not executing anyone. By a narrow margin, 52% to 48%, California residents voted to retain the death penalty. However, the state has yet to execute anyone since then. So, what are those on death row like? They are generally middle-aged. The average age is 47 years old. But there is a growing population of people over 60. At the time of their arrest, they were around 28 years old and most of them are single. Only a minority of death row inmates are married, and about half never completed high school. Most people on death row have already been sentenced, but it is usually not another homicide. Only 9% had already been convicted of homicide at the time of their conviction. Most of those sentenced to death have been there for a long time. Remember that Tookie Williams spent 25 years on death row in California before his execution. On average, a condemned person spends about 15 and a half years on death row before being executed. And this time has increased over the past few decades, when in 1993 the average time between conviction and execution was nine years. The nation's longest-serving death row inmate, serving 40 years, was Florida's Gary Albert. He spent more time on death row than any other inmate in the country, but died of natural causes in May 2013. He was 66 and had been sentenced to death in 1974. Experts in the matter however, doubt that he would ever have been executed. He suffered from schizophrenia. Most recently, on June 3, 2015, Texas executed Lester Bower, Jr., who had been on death row for 31 years before his execution. He was 67 years old when he died and was the oldest person on death row. The vast majority of those sentenced to death are men. Of those currently on death row, about 43 percent are white and almost a percentage are black. Latino representation on death row is increasingand reached around 13%. Now let's talk about the death penalty in Florida, specifically. There are approximately 400 men and women on death row in Florida, more than in any other state except California. All but four of these people are men, and most of those on death row are white. There have been 90 executions in Florida since Greg v. Georgia reinstated the death penalty in 1976. That represents about 8 percent of all people sentenced to death in the state. Most of these executions took place for crimes committed in Miami Dade County. Most executions in Florida are done by lethal injection, although the state has used electrocution in the past. More on this in a future module. One aspect of Florida's death row that sets it apart from most states is that a judge, not the jury, makes the final sentencing decision. In all but three U.S. states, the jury decides whether a defendant should be sentenced to life or death. And the jurors must unanimously agree on this decision. In Florida, however, the jury only recommends the recommended sentence to the judge, who will then make the final life or death decision. Additionally, in Florida, this recommendation does not have to be unanimous. In Florida, people have been sentenced to death by recommendations of 8 to 4, 9 to 3 and 10 to 2. While in most other states, because these are not unanimous votes, the accused would have been sentenced to life imprisonment. A judge's ability to make a decision is called judicial override because the judge can overrule or change the jury's recommendation. Clemency is an appeal, usually to the governor or a pardon board, to ask for mercy. When a person sentenced to death asks for clemency, he is simply asking for mercy so that the governor or pardon board will spare his life. The inmate is not released, but his sentence is converted to life without parole. Pardon can be granted for any reason, although it is usually because there is evidence that the accused may not be guilty. In Florida, only six pardons have been granted, and none in the modern era of the death penalty. This contrasts with other states. Texas granted two pardons. Ohio has issued 18. And in 2000, former Illinois Republican Governor George Ryan granted clemency to all those on death row. By the time he did this, Illinois had executed 13 inmates, but released 12 because they were innocent. And that didn't please the conservative governor. Twenty-five innocent men have been released from Florida's death row. Well, 24 were released, and one died on death row before DNA evidence showed he didn't do it. This man, Frank Lee Smith, was sentenced to death in 1984 and spent 14 years unjustly on death row before dying of cancer. He was cleared of the crime 11 months after his death. DNA also showed who committed the crime for which Frank was convicted. Eddie Lee Mosley, a serial killer who went on to kill between 8 and 16 women before being arrested in 1988. Mosley's DNA was linked to at least one other man on death row in Florida . There have been more innocent people released from death row in Florida than in any other state. Also in Florida, in June 2013, Governor Rick Scott signed the Timely Justice Act of 2013. The law aims to revise and speed up the capital punishment process. It creates shorter deadlines for a person sentenced to death to appeal post-conviction motions and imposes reporting requirements on the progress of the case. It belongsthe governor of each state to set an execution date for those sentenced to death. Some governors do not issue death certificates and no one is executed while in office. Since July 2015, Florida Governors Jeb Bush and Rick Scott have issued death certificates to more death row inmates than any other Florida governor, although the upcoming execution of Jerry Correll would put Scott at the top of the list, and he has yet another one. 3 and a half years in office. As of mid-2015, there have been just over 1,400 executions in the United States since 1976. The majority of these executions take place in Texas and Oklahoma, although Virginia is close. Texas and Oklahoma alone account for about half of all executions in the United States. Previous decades of U.S. history saw greater numbers of executions. There were more executions in the 1930s than in any other decade in U.S. history. You can see the period when Furman vs. Georgia was introduced and then in 1976 as executions slowly resumed. There have been seven executions in Florida. All executions in this country used lethal injection in 2014, although different combinations of one, two or three drugs can be observed. Lethal injection is now a controversy surrounding the death penalty in the United States. And the different combinations represent states' efforts to replace the traditional three-drug combination when one of the key drugs was no longer being made. Most executions take place in the south. There are few found in the West and the Northeast. Again, Texas and Oklahoma account for a large portion of all executions in the United States. The vast majority of executions are by lethal injection, although the electric chair, gas chamber, hanging, and firing squad have all been used since 1976. Rarely, historically, the United States has also used burning at the stake, at the pressing, at the drawing and at the quartering. as methods of execution in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s. Looking at all executions since the United States became a country, hanging is the most common technique. Now let's talk about people who have been executed in the United States. Of those executed, 98.9% were men. And just over half of all those executed were white and 34 percent were black. Before 1976, 56% of people executed for murder were black. And when we look at executions for rape, banned in 1977, 98% of those executed were black men, for the rape of a white woman. In modern times, victims in death penalty cases were roughly evenly distributed by gender. 49% of victims were women and 51% men. But a disproportionate number of victims were white. This means that if you kill a white person in the United States, you are more likely to be executed than those who kill victims of any other race. This is disproportionate because white people make up only half of all murder victims in the United States, but make up 77% of the victims of executed defendants. Race still plays a role in determining who is executed in this country. Before Furman v. Georgia, black defendants were far more likely to be sentenced to death and executed than white defendants. And it played a key role in the Supreme Court's decision to temporarily suspend the death penalty. And since then, we still see evidence of a racial disparity, but one that is more related to white victims than black defendants. That is, a defendant is more likely to be executed for murder if the victim is white, regardless of race or origin