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As The Death Penalty Declines, A Look At Where It's Sentenced The Most

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The "death chamber" at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, is pictured in February 2000. (Paul Buck/AFP/Getty Images)
The "death chamber" at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, is pictured in February 2000. (Paul Buck/AFP/Getty Images)

Across the country, the death penalty is on the decline.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia have abolished it, and four others have issued a moratorium on executions. Last year, 50 people were sentenced to death, less than half the number six years ago. But the majority of those sentences were handed down in just 16 counties, out of 3,000 counties in the United States.

Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd talks with writer Emily Bazelon about what she calls "the new geography of capital punishment" taking shape in the U.S.

Guest

Emily Bazelon, staff writer for the New York Times Magazine and a fellow at Yale Law School. She tweets @emilybazelon.

This segment aired on August 26, 2016.

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