Fewer Inmates Put To Death

Fewer Inmates Put To Death

Monday, January 8, 2007 Posted 11:07 a.m. (CDT)

The Washington, D.C. based Death Penalty Information Center, says the rate of executions slows throughout the nation.

Reports show 98 executions nationwide took place in 1999, while the number of inmates put to death declined to just 53 inmates last year. That was the fewest in a decade.

Even with the drop, an Oklahoma man convicted of killing four people during the robbery of a fast food restaurant in Tulsa in 1991 is scheduled to become the nation's first inmate put to death in 2007.

Corey Duane Hamilton's execution date comes early in the year, but experts say the number of inmates being put to death and the number of killers being sent to death row is on the decline both in Oklahoma and across the nation.

Experts cite the decrease as a result of challenges to the constitutionality of the lethal injection method.

In Oklahoma, another factor in the decline was a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made it unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded defendants.