THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 30, 1995 TAG: 9512300379
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Fifty-six convicted killers were executed in the United States this year, the highest national figure for capital punishment since 1957.
With more than 3,000 men and women on death rows awaiting execution, the prospect for 1996 is an even higher total.
``The trend is fewer legal protections and there's a sentiment towards speeding up the process,'' said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center. His Washington-based research group is concerned about inequities in how capital punishment is meted out. Of the 38 states with death penalty laws, 16 carried out executions in 1995.
They were led by Texas, which executed 19 people. Missouri was a distant second with six. Virginia executed five.
``We're No. 1,'' said Larry Fitzgerald of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. ``It reflects the attitude of the Texas electorate. We've got a tough-on-crime state and aggressive prosecutors.''
Such leadership is not a recent development. Since the Supreme Court ended a four-year moratorium on capital punishment in 1976, there have been 313 U.S. executions - 104 in Texas.
Today, 411 men and six women are on Texas death rows. Fifteen are scheduled to die by May, and Fitzgerald says at least five of those people are ``excellent candidates,'' whose various appeals have traveled through state and federal courts for years.
Capital punishment remains largely, but not entirely, a Southern phenomenon. Besides Texas, Missouri and Virginia, executions occurred this year in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
No one has a definitive explanation for why the 1995 total of 56 executions is comparatively so high. There were 31 carried out in 1994, 38 in 1993, 31 in 1992, 14 in 1991 and 23 in 1990.
In the 1950s, the average annual execution total was 71.7. Sixty-five executions were carried out in 1957.
With some regularity since 1984, death-penalty advocates and abolitionists both have sounded ``flood gates are opening'' predictions. All have proved premature.
But Dieter and Fitzgerald agree the indicators now point to a significant increase in the pace of executions. Among them:
Moves by Congress to change laws governing state prisoners' access to federal courts.
The end to federally funded law offices to help with death row appeals.
Revisions by some states to speed the appellate process in capital cases.
KEYWORDS: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT EXECUTION by CNB