Number of executions continued to fall this year but many were botched, report says

Public support and use of the death penalty in 2022 continued their more than two-decade decline in the U.S., and many of the executions that were carried out during the year were "botched" or highly problematic, an annual report on capital punishment says.

There were 18 executions in the U.S. in 2022, the fewest in any pre-pandemic year since 1991. There were 11 executions last year. Outside of the pandemic years, the 20 death sentences handed out in 2022 were the fewest in any year in the U.S. in a half-century, according to the report by the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center.

"All the indicators point to the continuing decline in capital punishment and the movement away from the death penalty is durable," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the nonprofit, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.