WASHINGTON - The number of death sentences handed down in the United States has dipped to its lowest point since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, a research group said.
In 2004, 125 people were sentenced to death in the United States, the fewest number since 1976, according to statistics collated by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which campaigns for justice on behalf of poor African Americans.
Figures from the fund`s quarterly report, Death Row USA, show a 13 percent drop compared with the same statistics in 2003, and a 50 percent fall in the number of people sentenced to death in the late 1990s.
Foreign human rights activists often target the United States for the use of the death penalty in some states, which opponents say is cruel and at odds with modern global standards of criminal justice and human rights.
Doubts over the quality of defense lawyers available to some suspects and the use of DNA evidence to expose wrongful convictions have prompted some states to suspend or review executions.
Anti-death penalty activists said the drop in death sentences showed that such questions over capital punishment were starting to have an impact.
"The many problems associated with capital punishment are clearly impacting the number of people sentenced to death each year," said Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
"Persistent questions about whether the death penalty is applied accurately and fairly have resulted in greater skepticism about this practice among the public, capital jurors, and many state and national officials."
The DPIC, a non-governmental organization, reported in December that the number of prisoners sentenced to death, on death row or executed had declined.
New York`s highest court last year ruled that the state`s death penalty, reinstated in 1995 was invalid.
And former Illinois Governor George Ryan triggered intense debate over capital punishment when he emptied the state`s Death Row in 2003, arguing that some people facing execution could have been innocent.
04/26/2005 18:13 GMT