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Alabama woman works to help returning citizens rebuild their lives; Marist polls: Harris leads Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin; they're tied in Pennsylvania; UAW contract negotiations at VW focus on healthcare, safety, wages; NC dentists warn of crisis due to low Medicaid reimbursement rates.

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The Teamsters choose not to endorse a presidential candidate, county officials in Texas fight back against state moves to limit voter registration efforts, and the FBI investigate suspicious packages sent to elections offices in at least 17 states.

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A USDA report shows a widening gap in rural versus urban health, a North Carolina county remains divided over a LGBTQ library display, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz' policies are spotlighted after his elevation to the Democratic presidential ticket.

Report: U.S. Support for Death Penalty Wanes to Historic Low

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Monday, December 23, 2019   

INDIANAPOLIS -- Despite President Donald Trump's efforts this summer to resurrect federal executions, support for the death penalty is at a 47-year low, according to a new year-end report.

Robert Dunham is executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which released the report. He said it shows there were fewer than 30 executions and 50 death sentences nationwide for the fifth year in a row, marking a national decline in support for capital punishment.

"The American public has moved away from capital punishment," Dunham said. "Support for the death penalty as a whole has dropped from 80% in the 1990s to slightly above 50% today."

He said major reasons for the diminished support include a growing public preference for life imprisonment over the death penalty in murder cases, and the high legal costs for states associated with death sentences and executions. Twenty-one states have now abolished the death penalty.

The report said 11 death-penalty states, including Indiana, have marked a decade since they've had an execution. In December 2009, Indiana put Matthew Eric Wrinkles to death by lethal injection for committing multiple murders in the 1990s.

Dunham said there are many factors at play in why Indiana has declined to act on capital cases recently. One factor is that the state has made life without the possibility of parole an option for prosecutors.

"Part of it is also because the American public, and people in Indiana, have lost their appetite for the death penalty," he said. "The death penalty isn't being imposed, isn't being carried out. And that's something we've seen more and more across the entire Midwest."

He said in the past decade, Indiana and other states - along with the federal government - have struggled to obtain the drugs needed to carry out an execution, because many pharmaceutical manufacturers don't want to be associated with putting people to death.


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