Key Issue

Capital Punishment

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AP/Wide World Photos

The death chamber in the Terre Haute, Indiana federal penitentiary, where Timothy McVeigh was executed.

According to public opinion polls, capital punishment has the backing of the majority of Americans, although that majority has decreased slightly in recent years. In a 2007 poll, the Gallup Organization reported that 69% of the public supports the death penalty for convicted murderers; in 2003 the figure was 74%. The death penalty has the support of President Barack Obama, who backs it in more limited circumstances where "the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage."

Capital punishment backers see death as the appropriate punishment for those who commit the most deadly and brutal crimes. They say that capital punishment assures the proper balance of justice and order that nations are obliged to implement. In addition, they contend that capital punishment, if carried out expediently and routinely, presents a powerful deterrent for would-be murderers, terrorists and drug-traffickers, alleviates an overcrowded penal system and lowers costs at prisons.

Opponents of the death penalty object that executing criminals is a contradictory and immoral way to send the message that killing is wrong. They also worry that human error or legal-system bias could condemn an innocent person to death. Indeed, a Gallup poll from February 2000 found that 91% of Americans believed that in the past 20 years, an innocent person had received a death sentence. Groups that oppose the death penalty, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Amnesty International, contend that it is imposed in disproportionately higher frequency on the poor, who cannot afford qualified legal counsel, and racial minorities.

In recent years, concern over fairness in capital punishment cases, and how the legal system handles such cases, has led some to seek moratoriums on the death penalty while such issues are scrutinized. In 2000, for example, Illinois Governor George H. Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions in the state, saying the system was "fraught with error." In January 2003, Ryan carried out the largest mass commutation in U.S. history when he pardoned or vacated the death sentences of 171 convicts. Several states have also banned the execution of the mentally retarded, and in June 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court found that such executions violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. In December 2007, New Jersey's governor signed a law abolishing the death penalty in the state. The law marked the first time a state legislatively repealed capital punishment, as opposed to a court prohibiting it, since 1976 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a national ban on capital punishment. New Mexico in March 2009 became the second state to legislatively repeal the death penalty

The number of executions carried out by states increased overall during the 1990s. Executions reached a record high of 98 in 1999, then fell to 85 in 2000 and 66 in 2001. In 2002, the number of executions rose to 71, and then declined to a low of 37 in 2008 in connection with an informal moratorium on executions that year related to a pending Supreme Court case. Following the end of the moratorium, executions rose to 52 in 2009.

Whether the more frequent imposition of the death penalty had anything to do with the lower murder rate experienced during the 1990s remains an open question. Supporters of capital punishment see a connection between the two trends and argue that violent crime could be further reduced if more people were actually executed as sentenced. Death penalty opponents, on the other hand, typically argue that the declining murder rate could be attributed to other causes, such as demographic shifts resulting in a smaller percentage of young men (who are most likely to commit violent acts) in the U.S. population and a reduction in turf wars between gangs involved in drug trafficking. In 2006, the number of murders recorded in the U.S. increased by 1.4% over the previous year's total.

Controversy arose over the use of lethal injections after studies showed the combination of three chemicals could cause undue suffering to the inmate. In September 2007, the appeal two Kentucky death row inmates filed claimed that lethal injection violated the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment was accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Over the next few months, the Supreme Court effectively placed a moratorium on lethal executions while the case, Baze v. Rees, was pending. Since lethal injection was the only method of execution being regularly used in the country at the time, no prisoners were put to death while the case was under review. On April 16, the high court upheld the lethal injection method that had been challenged, ruling 7-2 that it did not violate the Eighth Amendment. On May 6, the state of Georgia ended the de facto moratorium by executing a convicted murderer.

Special Feature:

World Almanac: Crime: Executions, by State and Method, 1977-2005 - A detailed breakdown of executions by state and method.

Key Recent Stories:

2009: Capital Punishment: Executions Up, Sentences Down in 2009 - The Death Penalty Information Center December 17 reported that the number of prisoners executed in the U.S. had risen to 52 in 2009, up from 37 in 2008. Experts suggested that a de facto moratorium on executions during 2007 and 2008, due to the Supreme Court's consideration of a case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection methods, had artificially lowered the number of executions in those years, causing the increase to seem larger. The number of new death sentences issues in 2009 had dropped to 106, down from a high of 328 in 1994. In addition, the report noted that New Mexico had abolished the death penalty in March, becoming the fifteenth state to end its use of capital punishment.

Capital Punishment: Ohio Inmate Executed Using New Method; Other Developments - Condemned prisoner Kenneth Biros December 8 was executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, ending a temporary suspension of executions in the state announced by Governor Ted Strickland (D) in October. The execution marked the first time that a U.S. prisoner was put to death using a lethal injection protocol that used a large dose of a single drug, rather than the three-drug cocktail used by most U.S. states.

Capital Punishment: Kentucky Suspends Executions - The Kentucky Supreme Court November 25 ruled, 4-3, that the state government had failed to follow proper administrative procedures when adopting the lethal injection protocol used to execute condemned prisoners in the state. The Kentucky Supreme Court suspended all executions in the state until the government readopted the current lethal injection protocol, a process that required public hearings and which could take more than six months. The decision did not challenge the legality of the protocol itself, which had been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2008.

Capital Punishment: Botched Execution Prompts Ohio Stays - Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (D) October 5 announced that he would delay the scheduled executions of two death row inmates in the state, following a September 15 incident in which a condemned prisoner, Romell Broom, spent two hours waiting to be executed while technicians attempted unsuccessfully to find a vein that could be used for lethal injection. The state of Ohio, which had put 32 people to death since executions resumed there in 1999, left unchanged the scheduled execution of prisoners in December and in January and February 2010.

Capital Punishment: New Mexico Ends Death Penalty - A bill signed into law March 18 by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) repealed the death penalty in the state for all prisoners convicted after July 2009. The bill had been passed February 11 by the New Mexico House of Representatives, 40-28, and March 13 by the state Senate, 24-18. The state House had previously passed bills to repeal the state's death penalty in both 2005 and 2007, but both had failed to pass the state Senate. New Mexico was the second state to legislatively repeal the death penalty, rather than having its law invalidated by a court ruling, since the U.S. Supreme Court ended a national ban on executions in 1976.

2008: Capital Punishment: News in Brief - A total of 37 prisoners were executed in 2008 in the U.S., according to a report issued December 11 by the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment group. That was five fewer than in 2007, and the smallest annual total since 1994, when 31 prisoners were put to death. In addition, a total of 111 people were given capital sentences in 2008, down from 115 in 2007.

Supreme Court: Death Penalty for Child Rape Barred - The Supreme Court June 25 ruled, 5-4, that the execution of child rapists was prohibited by the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, as long as the rapist did not kill the victim. The court also said the death penalty should be reserved for murderers and those who had committed crimes against the state, such as treason or espionage.

Capital Punishment: Georgia Executes First Prisoner Since Ruling; Other Development - Convicted murderer William Lynd May 6 was put to death by the state of Georgia, becoming the first prisoner executed in the U.S. since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that the standard method of carrying out lethal injection executions did not violate the Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Supreme Court: Court Upholds Lethal Injection Method - The Supreme Court April 16 ruled, 7-2, that the lethal injection method Kentucky used to execute death-row prisoners did not violate the Eighth Amendment's guarantee against "cruel and unusual punishment." Kentucky's method was similar to the one employed by the federal government and 34 other states. A de facto moratorium on the death penalty had been in place since September 2007, when the court accepted the case, Baze v. Rees, and several states were expected to resume executions in the coming months. The Supreme Court during that period had also issued several stays of execution, which were expected to be lifted.

Capital Punishment: Electric Chair Outlawed in Nebraska - The Nebraska Supreme Court February 8 ruled, 6-1, that the state's use of electrocution to execute death row prisoners violated the Nebraska constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Nebraska was the only state to use the electric chair as its sole method of execution, but nine others--South Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, Virginia, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee--retained electrocution either as an option given to inmates or as a backup method.

2007: Capital Punishment: Executions Decline to 13-Year Low - A total of 42 prisoners were executed in 2007 by 10 states in the U.S., according to a report issued December 18 by the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment group. That was 11 fewer than in 2006 and the smallest number since 31 prisoners were executed in 1994.

New Jersey Abolishes Death Penalty - A bill signed into law December 17 by new Jersey Governor John Corzine (D) ended the death penalty in the state. It was the first time that a state had legislatively repealed the death penalty, as opposed to having it struck down by a court, since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a national ban in 1976. The bill had been passed December 10 by the state Senate, 21-16 and December 13 by the state Assembly, 44-36. Corzine described the bill as "progress for us and for the millions of people across our nation and across the globe who reject the death penalty as a moral or practical response" to murder.

Supreme Court: Justices Stay Florida Execution - The Supreme Court November 15 granted a stay of execution to Mark Schwab five hours before he was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Florida. The court said the stay would last until it was able to consider a request by Schwab to review his case. While the court did not provide a rationale for its decision, observers said it indicated that the court had effectively placed a moratorium on lethal injection executions until it was able to rule on Baze v. Rees, a case focusing on whether certain drugs and procedures used in lethal injection constituted cruel and unusual punishment, in January 2008.

Supreme Court: 2007-08 Term Begins--Death Penalty - The Supreme Court September 25 accepted an appeal from two Kentucky death-row inmates claiming execution by a particular form of lethal injection violated the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The use of lethal injection had come under scrutiny in recent years, as studies showed that a combination of three chemicals used to kill death row prisoners could cause them undue suffering. The court would only decide if the use of that particular combination of drugs was cruel and unusual, rather than judging lethal injection in principle.

Capital Punishment: Attorney General May Get Fast-Track Power - The Los Angeles Times August 14 reported that new regulations were set to go into effect that would grant the U.S. attorney general the authority to hasten the conclusion of death penalty cases across the country. That power, known as "fast-tracking," involved certifying that a given state had strong procedures in place to guarantee legal representation for defendants. That allowed the state to carry out sentences more quickly and cut the amount of time death row inmates had to file an appeal to six months, from one year.

2006: Capital Punishment: Executions Suspended in Three States; Capital Punishment: Sentences, Executions Decline - Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on December 15 ordered the suspension of executions by lethal injection, two days after an execution in the state that was marred by a botched injection. The same day, a judge in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, ruled that California's procedures for lethal-injection executions were in violation of the Constitution, ordering the state to revise them and forcing a halt to executions until it had done so. Maryland's Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, December 19 ordered a halt to executions in that state, ruling on a technicality about how the procedure for lethal injection had been adopted. Meanwhile, the Death Penalty Information Center, a group opposed to the death penalty that compiled statistics on its use, in reported the number of death sentences imposed in the U.S. had continued to decline in 2006.

Capital Punishment: Injection Doubts Halt California Execution; Injection Dispute Hampers Missouri Executions - California prison authorities February 21 indefinitely postponed the execution of inmate Michael Morales after finding that they were unable to comply with a judge's order on the lethal injection procedure. Judge Jeremy Fogel of U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, February 14 had ordered prison officials to ensure that Morales was neither conscious nor in pain during the execution. He cited medical evidence of inmates' suffering during other California executions, and warned that such practices could amount to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Elsewhere, Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. of U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., June 26 temporarily halted executions by Missouri authorities, finding that existing lethal-injection procedures failed to protect inmates from undue pain and suffering. He ordered prison officials to recruit a board-certified anesthesiologist who could oversee executions and ensure that the inmates were fully sedated before receiving drugs that paralyzed and killed them. However, Missouri officials said they were unable to find a certified anesthesiologist who would cooperate. Of the 36 states that allowed capital punishment, 35 used lethal injection as the preferred method.

2005: Capital Punishment: North Carolina Holds 1,000th U.S. Execution Since 1976 - North Carolina authorities December 2 executed convicted murderer Kenneth Boyd, marking the 1,000th U.S. execution since 1976. In that year, the Supreme Court had issued a decision, Gregg v. Georgia, allowing the reintroduction of death penalty statutes. Later December 2, South Carolina authorities executed Shawn Humphries, and Maryland December 5 executed Wesley Baker, bringing the U.S. total to 1,002.

Capital Punishment: Virginia Inmate Wins Clemency - Virginia Governor Mark Warner (D) November 29 granted clemency to death-row inmate Robin Lovitt, commuting his sentence to life in prison without parole. Lovitt, convicted of a 1998 murder, had been scheduled to die the following day, and would have been the 1,000th person executed in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. Lovitt's lawyers argued that new DNA tests could have helped exonerate him, but a court clerk had improperly discarded evidence from the case, including the murder weapon, after Lovitt had exhausted his state appeals but before he launched his federal appeals.

Decline in Executions Continues - The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics November 13 reported that 59 inmates had been executed in the U.S. in 2004, down from 65 in 2003. A total of 125 people had received death sentences in 2004, a drop from 144 in 2003 and the sixth straight annual decline. The annual average for death sentences during the 1990s had been 290. The 2004 figure was the smallest since 1973. Factors contributing to the declines in death sentences and executions included an overall drop in violent crime and the increasing availability of life in prison without parole as a sentencing option. Furthermore, the Supreme Court in recent years had added the mentally retarded and juvenile offenders to the categories of defendants who were ineligible for the death penalty.

Supreme Court: Death Penalty Retardation Rules Upheld - The Supreme Court in an unsigned opinion October 17 vacated a 2004 ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, that had ordered Arizona to allow a jury to determine whether capital murder defendant Robert Smith was mentally retarded, and thus ineligible to receive a death sentence. Arizona, like 17 other states, allowed a judge to make such determinations.

Capital Punishment: Connecticut Executes First Inmate Since 1960 - Connecticut authorities May 13 executed serial killer Michael Ross by lethal injection. It was the first execution by the state since 1960. Executions in the northeastern U.S. were extremely rare, and of the six states in New England, only Connecticut and New Hampshire had death penalties.

Capital Punishment: Injections Faulted for Potential Suffering - A study led by University of Miami researcher Leonidas Koniaris, released April 14 and published in the April 23 issue of the British medical journal the Lancet, found that flaws in the use of lethal injection in U.S. executions could cause undue suffering by inmates before their deaths.

Capital Punishment: U.S. Disavows World Court Jurisdiction - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in March informed United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan that the U.S. was withdrawing from an optional protocol of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations that gave the U.N. International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, jurisdiction over disputes related to the treaty. The move followed an April 2004 ruling in which the ICJ had ordered the U.S. to grant court hearings for 51 Mexican death-row inmates who claimed that they had been denied their right of access to Mexican consular officials under the Vienna Convention. That ruling was the subject of a pending U.S. Supreme Court case, Medellin v. Dretke.

Supreme Court Bans Executions For Juvenile Offenders; Minimum Age Raised From 16 to 18 - The Supreme Court March 1 ruled, 5-4, that executions of convicts who committed their crimes before age 18 were prohibited by the Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The court in 1988 had abolished executions for offenders aged 15 and younger, but in a 1989 ruling rejected a bid to raise the minimum age to 18. In the new decision, Roper v. Simmons, the justices found in part that a new national consensus had developed since their last ruling on the issue.

2004: Supreme Court: Mexican's Treaty Rights Case Accepted - The Supreme Court December 10 accepted a case involving the rights of Mexican citizens on death row in the U.S. under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In March, the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands, had ordered the U.S. to review the convictions and sentences of 51 Mexicans on death row in nine U.S. states, finding that their Vienna Convention rights had been violated.

Capital Punishment: 2003 Decline in Death Sentences Reported - The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics in November reported that 144 convicts were sent to death row in 2003 after receiving death sentences, the lowest number since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. The 2003 figure was 24 fewer than in 2002, and far less than the annual average of 297 between 1994 and 2000. Much of the decline was attributed to a January 2003 decision by then Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R) to grant clemency or pardon to that state's entire death row population.

Capital Punishment: ICJ Orders U.S. Review of Mexicans' Cases - The United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands March 31 ordered the U.S. to review and reconsider the cases of 51 Mexican citizens who had been sentenced to death in eight U.S. states. Ruling 14-1, the court found that in the cases of the 51 Mexican inmates, U.S. authorities had violated the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to put arrested foreign nationals in contact with their country's consulate.

Capital Punishment: News in Brief - The Illinois Supreme Court in January upheld former Republican Governor George Ryan's January 2003 decision to empty Illinois's death row by pardoning or commuting the death sentences of 171 convicts.

2003: Capital Punishment: Illinois Reforms Death Penalty Laws - Illinois's House in November unanimously approved legislation designed to reform the state's death penalty system, overriding a veto by Governor Rod Blagojevich (D). The state's Senate had voted to override the veto earlier in the month. The legislation included many of the recommendations made by a special commission appointed by former Governor George Ryan (R), who in January had pardoned or commuted the death sentences of all 171 convicts then on the state's death row.

Capital Punishment: Court Overturns More Than 100 Sentences - In September, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California voted to apply retroactively a 2002 Supreme Court decision on capital punishment sentencing procedures. The 8-3 ruling thus overturned more than 100 death sentences in Arizona, Idaho and Montana.

Capital Punishment: World Court Orders U.S. Stays - In early February, the United Nations International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, ruled that the U.S. government should stay the impending executions of three Mexican citizens on death row in the U.S. Mexico had filed a lawsuit alleging that state and local officials in the U.S. were violating Mexican defendants' rights by denying them access to legal help from the Mexican government. There were 51 Mexican citizens on death row in the U.S.

Capital Punishment: Illinois Governor Spares 171 Convicts - In January, Illinois Governor George Ryan pardoned or vacated the death sentences of 171 convicts. Ryan, who left office days later, effectively cleared the state's death row in the largest mass commutation in U.S. history. Most of the convicts had their sentences reduced to life in prison without parole.

2002: Capital Punishment: Illinois Panel Reviews Clemency Petitions; Other Developments - The number of people executed in the U.S. increased to 71 in 2002 from 66 in 2001, it was reported in late December. That same month, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that the number of prisoners on death row nationwide had decreased for the first time since 1976, dropping to 3,581 at the end of 2001 from 3,601 in 2000.

Supreme Court Bans Execution of Retarded Convicts; 'Cruel and Unusual' Punishment Seen - In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court in June held that executing the mentally retarded breached the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, 18 out of the 38 death penalty states had bans on executing the retarded. The federal death penalty statute already had a ban on such executions as well. The case was Atkins v. Virginia.

Supreme Court: Jury, Not Judge, Must Decide Death Penalty - In June, the U.S. Supreme Court held, 7-2, that decisions on whether or not to impose the death penalty must be made by a jury, not a judge. The case was Ring v. Arizona.

2001: Capital Punishment: Executions Decline in 2001 - The number of prisoners executed by the states dropped to 66 in 2001, a 22% decline from the previous year's total of 85.

Capital Punishment: Georgia Outlaws Electrocution - In October, execution by electrocution was struck down by Georgia's Supreme Court as a violation of the state's protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The state would start using lethal injection.

Capital Punishment: Three States Ban Execution of Retarded - In July and August, North Carolina, Connecticut and Missouri banned executions of the mentally retarded. That brought the total number of states banning executions of the retarded to 18.

U.S. Executes Oklahoma City Bomber McVeigh; First Federal Prisoner Put to Death Since '63 - In June, the U.S. executed convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana; he was the first federal inmate put to death since 1963. The execution had been delayed for one month after it was revealed that the FBI had not disclosed thousands of pages of documents during the trial. More than 200 relatives of victims and survivors of the bombing watched McVeigh's execution on a live closed-circuit television broadcast.

2000: Capital Punishment: Executions Decline in 2000 - States had executed 85 inmates in 2000, down 14% from the previous year's record total of 98 executions, it was reported in December.

Capital Punishment: Study Finds Disparity in Death Penalty - A Justice Department report released in September found significant racial and geographic disparities in federal death penalty sentences. The findings, announced by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, prompted numerous lawmakers and death penalty foes to call for a moratorium on federal executions.

Capital Punishment: Texas Inmate Executed Amid Controversy - Convicted killer Gary Graham in June was executed in Huntsville, Texas despite last-minute appeals and his repeated claims of innocence. Graham's case drew the widespread attention of both the media and death penalty opponents, who said that Graham had been one of many prisoners sentenced to death in Texas in spite of serious doubts about their guilt.

Capital Punishment: Study Reveals Flaws in Death Sentences - A sweeping study of U.S. capital punishment cases released in June found that between 1973 and 1995, over two-thirds of death sentences had been overturned on appeal due to procedural flaws or unsound evidence.

Capital Punishment: New Hampshire Governor Vetoes Death Penalty Ban - The New Hampshire Senate in May voted in favor of a bill that would repeal the death penalty in the state. The 400-member house had approved the same measure in March. As promised, Governor Jeanne Shaheen (D) vetoed the bill. No state had repealed the death penalty since its reinstatement by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

Supreme Court: Federal Role in Death Penalty Defined - The Supreme Court in April handed down two decisions clarifying the responsibilities of federal judges in reviewing appeals from state death row inmates.

Capital Punishment: Illinois Governor Ryan Halts Executions - Illinois Governor George Ryan (R) in January declared a moratorium on executions in the state. Ryan said the system was "fraught with error," and that he could not allow executions to resume until he was certain that all persons on death row were "truly guilty."

1999: Supreme Court: Cases on Execution Delays Refused - The Supreme Court in November refused to hear two cases in which death-row inmates from Florida and Nebraska asserted that their lengthy stays on death row were unconstitutional. The inmates argued that the prolonged delay in carrying out their executions violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment.

Capital Punishment: Texas Executes Canadian - Canadian citizen Joseph Stanley Faulder was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Faulder, 61, was the first Canadian executed in the U.S. since 1952, and his case had received international attention.

Supreme Court: Federal Death Penalty Case Upheld - A divided Supreme Court upheld the first death sentence it had considered under the 1994 Federal Death Penalty Act. The law had greatly expanded the range of federal crimes that were subject to the death penalty.

Capital Punishment: Death Sentence Commuted on Pope's Plea - Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan (D) commuted the death sentence of a convicted triple murderer after a personal request from Pope John Paul II.

Capital Punishment: Death Row Inmate Freed - A convicted killer who had been on death row in Illinois for 16 years was freed after an investigation by journalism students revealed his probable innocence.

1998: Capital Punishment: Post-1976 Executions Hit 500 Mark - Andrew Lavern Smith, executed by lethal injection in Columbia, South Carolina, became the 500th convict to be put to death in the U.S. since the Supreme Court had struck down the ban on capital punishment in 1976.

Capital Punishment: Texas Executes First Woman Since 1863 - Convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker was put to death by lethal injection at a state prison in Huntsville, Texas. She was the second woman to be executed in the U.S. and the first to be executed in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

1997: ABA Votes to Halt Capital Punishment - The American Bar Association, the national lawyers' organization, voted to seek a halt to executions until governments could figure out how to apply the death penalty more fairly.

1996: Death Penalty Attacked as Racist - The International Commission of Jurists said that the death penalty as applied in the U.S. was arbitrary and weighted against blacks and Hispanics.

Death-Row Appeals Curbs Upheld - The Supreme Court upheld portions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that imposed new curbs on the rights of death-row inmates in state prisons to seek federal reviews of their convictions.

Earlier Stories

1995: Texas Execution Sets Post-1976 Record - The 56 U.S. executions in 1995 were the highest annual total since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Capital Punishment: New York Reinstates Death Penalty - A list of states and other jurisdictions with and without the death penalty is shown.