Death Penalty Slowly Fading Away Across the U.S.

In 2016, states handed down fewer death sentences than at anytime since capital punishment was reinstated in 1972. The number of executions hit a low not seen in a quarter-century. And for the first time in four decades, opinion polls showed that fewer than half of Americans supported capital punishment.

That's the state of capital punishment in the U.S. today as captured in a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center.