The number of death sentences in the US this year dropped to the lowest number in 33 years, according to a report released Friday by the Death Penalty Information Center, dpa reported.
US courts meted out 106 death sentences in 2009, down from the highest number of 328 death sentences given out by judges in 1994.
The study covered the period of time since 1976, when the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty with strict guidelines.
The drop represented the seventh straight year of decline in death sentences. The number for 2009 was 60 per cent less than in the 1990s, Richard Dieter, DPIC director said in a press release.
New Mexico became the 15th state to abolish the death penalty, where Governor Bill Richardson observed that life in prison without parole was "a strong punishment" and noted that the cost of maintaining the death penalty was "a valid reason (for repeal) in this era of austerity and tight budgets."
In addition, the public is becoming increasingly sceptical about the justice system's ability to avoid mistakes, the DPIC said. It cited the nine cases of death-row prisoners who were exonerated - found not guilty of the crime for which they were convicted - this year alone.
On Thursday, for example, a Florida man who has spent 35 years in prison was released after a new investigation of evidence showed he had not committed the rape and kidnapping of a nine-year-old boy for which he had been found guilty.
James Bain, who had not been sentenced to die, was the 247th prisoner whose innocence was proven by DNA testing in recent years by the Innocence Project. The cases add substance to the arguments of death penalty opponents.
The DPIC however also noted that the actual number of executions rose in 2009, to 52, up from 37 in 2008. But the 2009 figure was still 47 per cent fewer than 10 years ago.
Most executions - 87 per cent in 2009 - occur in the south, and over half were in Texas this year.
But even in Texas and Virginia, the two leading states for executions, the decline in death sentences was "particularly noticeable," DPIC said. Texas averaged 34 death sentences a year in the 1990s, but only meted out nine death sentences this year. Virginia had dropped from six a year to just one in 2009.