Report: 5th straight year with under 30 executions in US
A new report finds a continuing decline in capital punishment in the United States.
The Death Penalty Information Center says 2019 was the fifth straight year with fewer than 30 executions and 50 new death sentences.
Only seven states carried out executions this year. That includes South Dakota with the execution of Charels Rhines in November.
But even as death row populations were dropping in most of the 29 states that still have the death penalty, the Trump administration tried to restart executions on the federal level and a more conservative Supreme Court appeared less willing to grant death-row inmates last-minute reprieves.