Executions on the Decline in US

None in many Southern states in 2012

Several southern states with histories of high use of the death penalty had no new death sentences or no executions in 2012, according to a new study released on Tuesday.

North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia had no death sentences and no executions this year, the Death Penalty Information Center found, and no executions were carried out in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana or Missouri. And in Texas, for the eighth consecutive year, the state executed more inmates — 15 — than it sentenced to death, "foreshadowing a decline in executions in the future," the year-end report noted.