This e-mail contains news articles from:         NYT - Death Sentences Dropped, but Executions Rose in '09         AP via Google News - Report: Death sentences decline; death rows shrink         AFP via Google News - US executions down by half over past decade: report         CNN - Death penalty use declining nationwide         Houston Chronicle - Steep decline in death sentences         Dallas Morning News - Death sentences in Texas declining along with nationwide...         The Guardian - US imposes fewer death penalties as DNA evidence ...         Columbus (OH) Dispatch - U.S. death sentences fall again; Ohio has 1         Middletown (OH) - Fewest death penalty sentences issued in decades - - - - - The report, The Death Penalty in 2009: Year End Report, Is at: http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/2009YearEndReport.pdf - - - - - A chart is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/us/18death.html December 18, 2009 Death Sentences Dropped, but Executions Rose in '09 By JOHN SCHWARTZ More death row convicts were executed in the United States this year than last, but juries continue to grow more wary of capital punishment, according to a new report. Death sentences handed down by judges and juries in 2009 continued a trend of decline for seven years in a row, with 106 projected for the year. That level is down two-thirds from a peak of 328 in 1994, according to the report being released Friday by the Death Penalty Information Center, a research organization that opposes capital punishment. This entire decade has been marked by a declining use of the death penalty, said Richard Dieter, the executive director of the group. The sentencing drop was most striking in Texas, which averaged 34 death sentences a year in the 1990s and had 9 this year. Vic Wisner, a former assistant district attorney in Houston, said a constant media drumbeat about suspect convictions and exonerations has really changed the attitude of jurors. Mr. Wisner said that while polls showed continued general support for capital punishment, there is a real worry by jurors of, 'I believe in it, but what if we later find out it was someone else and it's too late to do anything about it?' In 2005, Texas juries were given the option of sentencing defendants to life without parole. While death sentences are in decline, executions rose in the past year, according to the new report. Fifty-two prisoners have been put to death in 2009, compared with 42 in 2007 and 37 in 2008. The report also noted that in 2009 New Mexico became the 15th state to repeal the death penalty, in part because of budget considerations and the high cost of death penalty appeals, which Gov. Bill Richardson called a valid reason for eliminating the ultimate sanction in this era of austerity and tight budgets. But Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports capital punishment, argued that the decline in death sentences also corresponded to a decline in the murder rate, and criticized efforts to use cost arguments against the death penalty. The government could knock a large chunk off of the cost of execution by streamlining the review process, he said. Douglas A. Berman, an expert on sentencing law at Ohio State University, suggested that the rise in executions was due to last year's relatively low number, as states grappled with the implications of a major 2008 Supreme Court decision on lethal injection. In that case, Baze v. Rees, the court ended what amounted to a moratorium of several months, beginning in 2007, on lethal injection executions by proclaiming that the procedure used in Kentucky and other states with similar methods did not violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. This post-Baze echo in the figures, Mr. Berman said, can be seen in the execution in Ohio this month of Kenneth Biros. It came after a legal challenge to Ohio's protocol, a botched execution under the state's three-drug method for another prisoner, and a shift to a one-drug execution method. While other court challenges to lethal injection are proceeding around the country, he said, Ohio's action suggests that states are moving forward. - - - - - Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company / / / / /