United States

RetentionistLegal status of the death penalty*
2654Number of individuals currently under sentence of death
18Executions in 2022
11Executions in 2021
17Executions in 2020

2022Last known execution
Lethal Injection, ShootingMethod(s) of execution
YesParty to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
NoParty to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty
YesParty to the American Convention on Human Rights
NoParty to the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty
NoUN Moratorium Resolution (2010): cosponsor
AgainstUN Moratorium Resolution (2010): vote
NoUN Moratorium Resolution (2010): has signed the Note Verbale of Dissociation
NoUN Moratorium Resolution (2012): cosponsor
AgainstUN Moratorium Resolution (2012): vote
NoUN Moratorium Resolution (2012): has signed the Note Verbale of Dissociation
NoDoes the country have a mandatory death penalty?
2023-05-23Last update


Source: Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide
*Source of classification: Amnesty International

Related document(s)

Document(s)

Somebody’s Child: Amid the Lingering Trauma of Trump’s Executions, a New Project Brings Families to Federal Death Row

By The Intercept, on 15 February 2024


2024

Article

United States


More details See the document

Published on February 11, 2024.

In 2002, Ra’id was arrested alongside several other suspects following a botched bank robbery that left two people dead and another paralyzed. His co-defendants pointed to him as the mastermind, which Ra’id adamantly denied. “I did not take part in that atrocity,” he told the court following his trial. “I did not shoot and kill anyone.”

Newson attended his father’s sentencing hearing, along with his mother, Jeannie Gipson-Newson. A death sentence would be “devastating to my child,” she remembered testifying. But it felt futile. The jurors seemed to have made up their minds. In 2004, Ra’id was sentenced to die.

  • Document type Article
  • Countries list United States

Document(s)

The Physician in the Execution Chamber: No Such Thing as the Normal Pain of Dying

By Joel Zivot, California Western International Law Journal , on 1 February 2024


2024

Academic Article

United States


More details See the document

Published in October 2023.

For capital punishment to be lawful in the United States of America, it must occur without cruelty, a requirement of the traditional reading of the Eighth Amendment. There has never been a consensus on what form of execution is cruel, although some historic practices are shockingly barbaric to modern sensibilities— I think of the “draw and quarter” technique. The family of the murdered victim may fairly argue that the murderous behavior should be the minimum degree of cruelty meted out. But western countries eschew that standard and seek moderate forms, partly to deter by punishment and partly as a forfeit of the murderer’s life for the victim’s life when execution is allowed in that state. Certainly, there is substantial support for continuation of execution in states that allow it. The judges must be respectful of that, but still, they must respect the 8th amendment. At present, the prevalent method of execution in the United States is “lethal injection” using injectable medicines in very high doses that are repurposed to kill the prisoner. Because it is impossible to ask an executed individual about the cruelty experienced during their own death, the state instead relies on the empathy of witnesses to gauge the cruelty of a prisoner’s execution. Lethal injection was expected to be a bloodless execution and aimed to eliminate the visible appearance of cruelty, sometimes through the use of a paralytic.

  • Document type Academic Article
  • Countries list United States

Document(s)

American Death Penalty Exceptionalism, Then and Now

By Jordan Steiker, California Western International Law Journal , on 1 February 2024


Academic Article

United States


More details See the document

Published in October 2023.

The most commonly observed fact of American capital punishment is its present outlier status: the United States (U.S.) is the only developed Western democracy that retains the death penalty, and it does so not simply as a matter of law, but as a matter of practice, conducting numerous executions every year. This “exceptionalism” with respect to the death penalty is noteworthy, but focusing on present-day American retention obscures many additional aspects of American death penalty exceptionalism. This Keynote will trace several ways in which the American death penalty was an outlier at its founding and throughout its subsequent history, as well as the varied aspects of its exceptionalism today. I will conclude by predicting that U.S. exceptionalism will soon come to an end–with an “exceptional” form of death penalty abolition, traceable to the distinctive path of the American death penalty

  • Document type Academic Article
  • Countries list United States

Document(s)

More Indicators of the Falling Support for the Death Penalty

By Talia Roitberg Harmon and Michael L. Radelet, California Western International Law Journal , on 1 February 2024


Academic Article

United States


More details See the document

Published on October 12, 2023.

In the seminal Furman v. Georgia case from 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court (in effect) invalidated all death penalty statutes then inforce in American jurisdictions. After many states went back to their legislative drawing boards, some of the revised statutes were approved by the Court in 1976. At that time, Gallup found that 66 percent of the American public supported the death penalty, while 26 percent stood opposed. While support grew to 80 percent in 1994, a recent Gallup Poll from October 2022 shows that this figure has dropped to 55 percent. Recently, only 36 percent of Americans still support the death penalty given the alternative punishment of life imprisonment.

  • Document type Academic Article
  • Countries list United States
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