Those executed during 1990 had spent an average of 7 years and 11 months awaiting execution. In addition, during 1990, 244 prisoners under sentence of death were received by State prisons from the courts. Furthermore, during the year 101 persons had their death sentences vacated or commuted and seven died in prison while still under a death sentence. At the end of the year, 34 States reported a total of 2,356 prisoners under sentence of death, a 5-percent increase from the number held in 1989. All these prisoners had been convicted of murder. Their median time since sentencing was 4 years and 8 months. About 70 percent of those for whom criminal-history data were available had a prior felony conviction, with about one in 11 having a prior homicide conviction. Tables, map, and notes
Capital Punishment 1990
NCJ Number
131648
Date Published
September 1991
Annotation
Among the 36 States and the Federal government with capital punishment laws, 11 executed 23 prisoners during 1990, bringing the total number of executions to 143 since 1976, the year that the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.
Abstract
Date Published: September 15, 1991