Nevada and the death penalty

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Nevada is one of 27 states that still has the death penalty, but research by the Death Penalty Information Center shows capital punishment is on the decline nationwide.

Robert Dunham is the Executive Director of a national non-profit which is neither for nor against the death penalty itself but is critical of how it's administered. He tells News 3 that the reason it is still around in states like Nevada varies.

"I think it's history, it's culture, and it's politics," he said. "The notion that the death penalty deters crime is a myth."

Dunham said that is supported by a DPIC study analyzing homicides over 30 years.

"What we found was exactly the opposite of what you would expect if the death penalty had any value as an instrument of public safety," he said. "Murder rates are higher in states that have the death penalty than in states that don't."

Nevada has executed 12 people since 1976, with the last one taking place in 2006. Reasons to why it hasn't happened in more than 15 years vary from drug manufacturers not providing the drugs to doctors not wanting to supervise the execution.

"Without that, we can't legally carry them out," Rebecca Gill, Political Science professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, said. "If no doctors are willing to do it, then we need to make a change, either in the way that we execute people on death row or perhaps to the policy of sort of capital punishment overall."

There's been death row penalty cases that have also been overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct.

"We've had a couple, at least, of people who were on death row who were since found to be not guilty of what they were charged and convicted of," Gill said.

A Gallup Poll shows 55% of Americans said they're in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers. The figure holding steady for the last few years, but it's below the 60 to 80% readings between 1976 and 2016. However, Dunham said the poll needs to be reviewed in context.

"In the 1990s, 80% of Americans said they supported the death penalty," he said. "The last time Gallup then asked the policy question, what's the appropriate punishment for murder? Is it the death penalty or life without parole? Sixty percent of Americans said life without parole, and only 36% said they supported the death penalty."

While some view capital punishment as vindication for victims and their families, that's not always the case, according to Nancy Hart, the President of Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

"It doesn't deliver the kind of closure that is promised when and we hear that over and over from murder victim family members."