Three states resumed executions of death row inmates in 2018 after long breaks, but nationwide, executions remained near historic lows this year, according to an annual report on the death penalty released Friday. The report by the District of Columbia-based Death Penalty Information Center says 25 executions were carried out in 2018, the fourth consecutive year in which there have been fewer than 30 executions nationwide, the AP reports. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, the number of executions peaked in 1999 with 98. They were at their lowest in 2016 with 20, according to center statistics. Seventeen inmates currently have execution dates set for 2019.
Executions in 2018 were clustered in eight states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. About half of all the executions in 2018 took place in Texas, which carried out 13 death sentences. Tennessee was second with three. Alabama, Florida, and Georgia each had two while Nebraska, Ohio, and South Dakota each carried out one. Florida's execution Thursday of Jose Antonio Jimenez for fatally beating and stabbing a woman during a burglary was the most recent. Tennessee, South Dakota, and Nebraska resumed executions this year, the latter state after a 21-year pause, while Washington became the 20th state to ban the death penalty. (A judge halted a controversial execution plan in Nevada.)
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