Facing Death : The Numbers Behind the Ultimate Penalty

Following a judge’s order last week, convicted killer William Kirkpatrick Jr.’s execution, originally set for 12:01 a.m. this Friday, has been delayed two months until at least March 28. The postponement for Kirpatrick’s death by lethal injection will give the inmate time to confer with his attorneys. Kirkpatrick filed a last-minute appeal claiming he was innocent of the 1983 double murder that brought him the death sentence. He faces lethal injection because the state Legislature in 1992 amended California’s death penalty law in response to a lawsuit challenging the use of the gas chamber. In 1994, a federal district judge in San Francisco ruled that the gas chamber was cruel and unusual punishment.

A total of 314 executions have been carried out in 38 states since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Here is a look at the statistics behind the death penalty.

Death Row

California currently (as of Jan. 16, 1996) has 422 inmates on death row, the highest number of all states. The five states with the most inmates on death row:

California: 422

Texas: 399

Florida: 340

Pennsylvania: 197

Illinois: 161

Methods Used in Executions by State

A total of 38 states have the death penalty. The methods they have used since 1976.

Lethal injection: 32 states

Electrocution: 11

Lethal gas: 7

Hanging/Firing squad: 4

Firing squad: 2

Note: Some states authorize more than one method.

Ethnicity and the Death Penalty

More than half of individuals executed in the United States since 1976 were white. And more than 80% of the victims in death penalty cases were also white.

DEFENDANTS EXECUTED

White: 55%

African-American: 39%

Latino: 5%

Other: 1%

DEATH ROW INMATES

White: 48%

African-American: 41%

Latino: 8%

Other: 3%

VICTIMS

(In death penalty cases)

White: 82%

African-American: 13%

Latino: 3%

Other: 2%

Capital Punishment Over the Years

1851-1967: The death penalty is carried out 502 times in California, 308 times by hanging and 194 times in the gas chamber. Before 1937 all condemned prisoners were hanged.

April 1967: Aaron Mitchell, 37, is executed by lethal gas for killing a Sacramento police officer. He is the 194th and last prisoner to die in the San Quentin gas chamber.

February 1972: California Supreme Court declares death penalty unconstitutional, saying it violates state Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”

June 1972: U.S. Supreme Court strikes down death penalty statutes in every other state, finding that they give no guidelines to jurors for imposing death.

July 1976: U.S. Supreme Court rules that capital punishment is constitutional as long as jurors and judges who impose it are allowed some discretion.

January 1977: Gary Gilmore is put to death by a firing squad in Utah, making him the first person executed after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

August 1977: California legislature votes in a new death penalty law.

April 22, 1992: Robert Alton Harris, 39, is executed in San Quentin gas chamber after spending 11 years on death row. He was convicted in the 1978 slaying of two San Diego teenagers. Harris’ death was California’s first execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.

August 1993: David Mason, 36, is put to death in San Quentin gas chamber. He was convicted of killing five people.

1994: Federal judge in San Francisco rules gas chamber executions unconstitutional.

Sources: Death Penalty Information Center; NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Times staff.