A year-end report by the DPIC found that 17 prisoners were executed in 2020, with state-level use of capital punishment falling to its lowest level since 1983. ©AFP/File NICHOLAS KAMM 

New York (AFP) – Executions of prisoners in the US reached a 29-year low in 2020, an independent monitor said Wednesday, despite an unprecedented push by the federal government to kill death-row inmates ahead of a presidential transition in the new year.

A year-end report by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) found that 17 prisoners were executed in 2020, with state-level use of capital punishment falling to its lowest point since 1983.

The last time there were fewer executions in total — both state and federal — was 1991, when there were 14.

The monitor said the fall was part of a “long-term trend”, citing the recent abolition of the death penalty by Colorado and electoral victories for prosecutors opposed to the practice in states where executions were once common. It also said the Covid-19 pandemic had played a role.

But a marked increase in executions by the Trump administration represented an outlier in the data, with the federal government this year putting more people to death than all states combined — a historic first.

“What was happening in the rest of the country showed that the administration’s policies were not just out of step with the historical practices of previous presidents, they were also completely out of step with today’s state practices,” Robert Dunham, the DPIC’s executive director, said in a statement accompanying the report’s release.

Of the 17 prisoners executed, more than half were killed by the federal government, which this year ended an almost two-decade moratorium on the death penalty when white supremacist mass murderer Daniel Lewis Lee died by lethal injection in July.

Since then, the US government has executed nine inmates — three of whom were killed since the November 3 election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

For 131 years, outgoing presidents traditionally suspended federal executions during the transition period.

Most recently killed was Alfred Bourgeois, sentenced to death in 2004 for the murder of his two-year-old daughter.

Next month, Lisa Montgomery is due to become the first female executed by the US government in 67 years.

Disclaimer: Validity of the above story is for 7 Days from original date of publishing. Source: AFP.