CHICAGO – For the first time in history, the U.S. government has carried out more executions in a year than all states that still conduct executions, according to an annual report on the death penalty released Wednesday.President Donald Trump oversaw a full-throttle resumption of federal executions this year after a 17-year pause, carrying out 10 executions even as backing for capital punishment waned.
That's a higher yearly total than under any presidency since the 1800s, according to the report by the Death Penalty Information Center.
The dwindling numbers of states with active death-penalty programs carried out just seven executions in 2020 before some put the breaks on their execution programs to wait out the pandemic.