A tiny handful of counties drive U.S. executions

Evidence

The pattern of support for the death penalty varies regionally; it is carried out mainly in the Midwest and South. Within these regions only a few states—principally Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri—carry out the majority of executions. Executions can be localized even further. Only states can actually carry out executions, but county district attorneys can decide to request the death penalty. Fifteen counties in the Midwest and Southwest—fewer than 1% of the U.S. total—account for almost one third of all executions since 1976 (Top 15 counties by execution, 2013). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1839

Categorization

• SEED: Could fuel an essay on how discretionary local prosecutors, not statewide policy, concentrate state violence.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1839