Oklahoma Follows Texas In The Number Of Executions In 2012

Oklahoma is one nine states which carried out executions in 2012 according to a report released Tuesday by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that lobbies against capital punishment.

Texas leads the list with 15 executions this year, followed by Oklahoma, Arizona and Mississippi with 6 executions each.

The center says the state of Oklahoma has conducted 102 executions since 1976.

The other states which conducted executions in 2012 include Ohio and Florida with 3 executions each, South Dakota with 2 and Delaware and Idaho with 1 execution each.

The DPIC says the number of executions in 2012 was 56 percent less than the peak in 1999 and equal to last year's total. The number of new death sentences in 2012 as the second lowest since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Read the Death Penalty Information Center report.

Seventy-eight people were sentenced to death in 2012, representing a 75 percent decline since 1996 when there were 315 sentences, according to DPIC.

"Capital punishment is becoming marginalized and meaningless in most of the country," said Richard Dieter, DPIC's executive director.

The center says 33 states still have a death penalty on the books, but most have not carried out an execution in five years or more.