The death penalty is now almost exclusively the province of America’s red states. Over the past 10 years, only 16 percent of executions occurred in states that Joe Biden won in 2020. Just under half of those held on death row in the states are held in blue states. In Oregon, the most recent execution was in 1997. The most inmates on death row are in California, which hasn’t executed anyone since 2006.
Unsurprisingly, executions trail sentences. But that also means that sentences for capital offenses were more likely to occur when crime was high.
