Capital punishment in Alabama is a legal penalty. The state has the highest per capita capital sentencing rate in the United States. In some years, its courts impose more death sentences than Texas, a state that has a population five times as large. However, Texas has a higher rate of executions both in absolute terms and per capita. Legal process When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is decided by the jury and at least 10 jurors must concur. In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a retrial happens before another jury. In 2023, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that, when a condemned person appeals, the appellate court does not have to actively look for errors in the original judgment and only has to consider constitutional violations if the objection was already raised at trial. Previously, through 2022, appellate courts had been required to search for errors in the original judgment and to consider any constitutional violations that may have occurred at trial, regardless of whether the trial lawyer had objected. Until 2017, Alabama was the only state which still allowed a judge to impose death against jury verdict in favor of life imprisonment. The power of clemency belongs to the Governor of Alabama. The method of execution is lethal injection, unless the condemned requests electrocution or nitrogen hypoxia. Nitrogen hypoxia was approved in 2018, but as of 2022 it had not yet been used. If the selected method (whether chosen by the offender or by default) is found unconstitutional, state statutes provide the use of "any constitutional method of execution", which would likely include hanging, the gas chamber or firing squad. In February 2023, following a review of failed lethal injections, Governor Kay Ivey said executions would resume. Capital crimes The following kinds of murder are punishable by death in Alabama: Murder by the defendant during a kidnapping in the first degree or an attempt thereof committed by the defendant. Murder by the defendant during a robbery in the first degree or an attempt thereof committed by the defendant. Murder by the defendant during a rape in the first or second degree or an attempt thereof committed by the defendant; or murder by the defendant during sodomy in the first or second degree or an attempt thereof committed by the defendant. Murder by the defendant during a burglary in the first