America's enthusiasm for capital punishment - once a staple of electoral politics and a perennial hot topic in discussions of the criminal justice system - continued its decade-long decline this year, according to the annual report of the Death Penalty Information Center.

The number of new death sentences imposed by juries in 2011 fell below 100 for the first time since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976. Total executions dropped to 43, three-quarters of those in the South.

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