With five executions, Georgia ranked third in the nation in carrying out death sentences this year. At the same time, not a single capital defendant received a death sentence in 2015.
The dichotomy was revealed this week in annual reports that track capital punishment in Georgia and nationwide. The reports show that while the number of death sentences being imposed is plummeting, there still remain many condemned killers on death row whose appeals are exhausted or about to run out.
Georgia put five prisoners to death in 2015 versus two in 2014.
Among those the state executed this year were two who received nationwide attention: Kelly Gissendaner, the lone woman on Georgia's death row, and Warren Hill, whose lawyers had argued he was intellectually disabled.
There are 70 death row inmates in Georgia, and the appeals of five of these condemned killers have run their course, meaning they could be scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at any time.
So far this year, there have been 28 executions nationwide. That’s the lowest total in 24 years and seven fewer than were carried out in 2014, according to an annual report released this week by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. Only six states carried out executions in 2015, the lowest number since 1988.
Georgia, which has no more executions scheduled this year, trailed only Texas (which had 13 executions in 2015) and Missouri (six executions), the report said.
“The numbers we’re seeing in Georgia are consistent with what we’re seeing across the country,” said the information center’s director, Robert Durham. “The use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly rare and increasingly isolated in the United States.”
Georgia was joined by 17 other states that have the death penalty and where no new death sentences were imposed this year. So far, 49 death sentences have been handed down this year nationwide, the information center’s report said. This marked a 33 percent decline from the 73 death sentences imposed in 2014 — that prior number already a 40-year low.
Jerry Word, who heads Georgia’s capital defender office, said his attorneys resolved 29 cases this year without a death sentence, despite district attorneys who either filed a notice of intent to seek death or indicated a willingness to do so.
“I think my lawyers have done a really good job with working with our clients and with their families and with the DAs to get satisfactory resolutions for our cases,” Word said.
He added, “It does seem kind of odd that we’re not putting a lot of people on death row, but the executions continue.”
Chuck Spahos, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said the time and effort it takes to successfully prosecute a death case and carry it out weighs on many victims’ families.
“Anytime prosecutors have a conversation with a victim’s family, they discuss the length of time it takes to get to trial, the actual length of a trial that can take weeks, and the years and years of appeals, including the different levels that are filed up to the moment of an execution,” Spahos said.
“You compare that to a life-without-parole sentence that closes the case once and for all,” he said. “That closure to a victim’s family is very important, and I think it does play into the decision to take death off the table.”
The records bear that out. This year, state prosecutors resolved most of their death-penalty cases by allowing defendants to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole, according to state Capital Defender Office records, obtained under the Open Records Act.
The records also show that district attorneys continue to seek death sentences. So far this year, state prosecutors filed notices against 13 murder defendants — including two in Fulton County and two in DeKalb County. That’s five fewer cases than those for which death was sought in 2014.
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