“If leading prosecutors believe that the death penalty doesn’t work, and doesn’t advance Utah’s values, then that means death penalty repeal has overcome the largest hurdle that has been present in most other states,” Dunham explains. The possible perception that a person who commits a heinous crime, such as aggravated murder in Utah, is given the death penalty and therefore will be quickly executed doesn’t hold any water according to research and the state’s history with capital punishment. According to DPIC’s data, since the death penalty was brought back to the United States in 1973, 185 people have been exonerated of death row convictions.