18 Murderers Executed in Eight States in 1985

Eighteen convicted murderers were put to death in eight states in 1985, raising to 50 the number of executions carried out since the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in 1976, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported Sunday.

The bureau, a Justice Department branch, said in a report that there were 1,591 prisoners--17 of them women--awaiting execution last Dec. 31 in 32 states where the death penalty is in force. The figure was up 171 from 1984. Executions are authorized in five other states, but the report said that no prisoners were under death sentence in them at year’s end.

170 in California

The overall number awaiting execution included 170 convicts in California, where state Supreme Court decisions have blocked any executions since 1977, a stand that has become an issue in the state’s current election campaign.

Nationally, the report said, 270 men and three women, all convicted of murder, were committed to 26 state prison systems under death sentences last year. At the same time, courts set 80 death sentences aside in 26 states, including 13 each in California and Florida.

From 1930, when the federal government began collecting data, through 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court barred capital punishment as then practiced, the bulletin said there were 3,859 executions nationally. Of these, 292 took place in California, which in 1972 ranked fourth behind Georgia, New York and Texas in the total number of executions carried out.

As of Dec. 31, the report said, the largest number of recent executions was in Florida, with 13 since 1977. Next were Texas, with 10, Louisiana with 7, Georgia with 6 and Virginia with 4.

16 Executed in South

The study found that the 11 states of the old Southern Confederacy, plus Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Oklahoma, added 51 to their Death Row populations in 1985. This Southern tier of states accounted for 1,001 of the 1,591 prisoners under death sentence throughout the nation last Dec. 31. Those states executed 16 prisoners during the year.

In 11 Western and Rocky Mountain states, 296 prisoners were under death sentence at year’s end, including the 170 in California. Fifty-six were in Arizona, 28 in Nevada, 14 in Idaho and 5 each in New Mexico and Utah.

Six Midwestern states held 174 prisoners under death sentence on Dec. 31. Most were in Illinois, with 70. Ohio held 36, Missouri 29 and Indiana 26.

In 10 states of the Northeast, the report said that there were 73 prisoners sentenced to die, but no executions. Death Rows stood empty last year in New York, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, which are among 14 jurisdictions that now forbid capital punishment.

64.1% Under 35

Demographically, the report found that 56.8% of the inmates under death sentence in 1985 were white, 42.3% black and 1% were classified as “other”--11 American Indians and five Asians. Latinos made up 6.2% of the total, it said. A majority of the convicts--64.1%--were under 35, only 2% were over 55 and a scant 0.8% were under 20. Educationally, 58.1% had failed to graduate from high school, 10.8% did not get beyond the seventh grade, but 9.4% had some college training. Nearly a third were married, a fifth had been divorced and 43.9% had never married.

Prior felony convictions were found on the records of 970 convicts, and 116 of these had earlier convictions for homicide. At least 260 were on parole at the time of the killing that put them in prison, 70 were on probation, 36 had escaped from prison and 44 were already prison inmates.

Seven states, among them California, authorize executions by gas, but the methods most generally approved are lethal injection, favored by 16 states, and electrocution, authorized in 15. Four still authorize hanging and Idaho and Utah permit use of a firing squad, but are among 10 states that offer more than one method.