Number of death sentences falls to 106, seventh straight year the number has fallen and sharply down on high of 328 in 1994

The number of death sentences imposed by US courts has fallen because of a growing number of exonerations through DNA testing, according to a report by a prominent anti-death penalty group.

The Death Penalty Information Centre in Washington says judges and juries imposed fewer death sentences over the past 12 months than at any time since the restoration of execution in 1976.

This year 106 death sentences have been passed, the seventh straight year the number has fallen and sharply down on the high of 328 in 1994. Richard Dieter, DPIC's director and author of the report, said the fall reflected growing concern over the reliability of convictions. "The principal reason is the innocence cases, the exonerations, people getting out because of DNA testing.

"People read about these exonerations, people walking out of prison 20 years after the crime. Jurors are convicting but giving life sentences not the death penalty."

DPIC said nine condemned men were exonerated in 2009, the second highest number of exonerations since the death penalty was reinstated.

The Innocence Project says that overall 245 convicts have subsequently been cleared by DNA evidence across the US. Yesterday a man was released after 35 years in prison for raping a child. James Bain was sentenced to life for kidnapping and raping a nine-year-old boy who identified him from a photograph. A judge ordered the 54-year-old to be freed after DNA testing cleared him of the crime.

Dieter said the decline in death sentences was particularly pronounced in the two states that carry out the most executions, Texas and Virginia. A decade ago Texas was imposing 34 death sentences a year. This year it imposed nine. In Virginia the number fell to one this year from an average of six a year in the 1990s.

The economic climate had also contributed, Dieter said, because prosecutors were increasingly hesitant to spend the millions of dollars it often takes to secure a death penalty conviction when spending by many states is being cut.

The number of executions rose to 52 this year, a sharp increase on the year before, because of the lifting of the de facto moratorium while the supreme court considered the legality of lethal injection.

Half of the executions were in Texas. But the total number was still down by nearly half from 10 years ago.