"Executions, new death sentences and public support for capital punishment in the United States all fell this year to their lowest levels in decades, continuing sharp declines underway since the 1990s. States carried out fewer executions in 2016 than they had in 25 years, and juries imposed fewer death sentences than in any year since 1972, when the Supreme Court struck down all of the death penalty laws then on the books.
This year continued another trend, as new death sentences were more concentrated than ever in a handful of jurisdictions.
The new figures come from a report released on Wednesday by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research group that opposes capital punishment." http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/us/death-penalty-capital-punishment.html?_r=0
