how many us states currently use capital punishment
31 states 31
title: Capital punishment in the United States text: a moratorium in place, as the state had not executed anyone since Gary M. Heidnik in 1999. Capital punishment in the United States Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the United States, currently used by 30 states, the federal government, and the military. Its existence can be traced to the beginning of the American colonies. The United States is the only Western country currently applying the death penalty. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. title: Capital punishment in the United States text: Capital punishment in the United States Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the United States, currently used by 30 states, the federal government, and the military. Its existence can be traced to the beginning of the American colonies. The United States is the only Western country currently applying the death penalty. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the USA title: Capital punishment in the United States text: and Alaska in 1957, both before their statehood. Puerto Rico repealed it in 1929 and the District of Columbia in 1981. Arizona and Oregon abolished the death penalty by popular vote in 1916 and 1964 respectively, but both reinstated it, again by popular vote, some years later; Arizona reinstated the death penalty in 1918 and Oregon in 1978. Puerto Rico and Michigan are the only two U.S. jurisdictions to have explicitly prohibited capital punishment in their constitutions: in 1952 and 1964, respectively. Nevertheless, capital punishment continued to be used by a majority of states and the federal government for various title: Capital punishment in the United States text: said to be widely or routinely used in the United States; in recent years the average has been about one death sentence for every 200 murder convictions. Alabama has the highest "per capita" rate of death sentences. This is because Alabama was one of the few states that allowed judges to override a jury recommendation in favor of life imprisonment, a possibility it removed in March 2017. The distribution of death sentences among states is loosely proportional to their populations and murder rates. California, which is the most populous state, has also the largest death row with over 700 inmates. title: Capital punishment in the United States text: one of 4 countries to use this method, along with China, Thailand, and Vietnam. There were no executions in the United States between 1967 and 1977. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down capital punishment statutes in "Furman v. Georgia", reducing all death sentences pending at the time to life imprisonment. Subsequently, a majority of states passed new death penalty statutes, and the court affirmed the legality of capital punishment in the 1976 case "Gregg v. Georgia". Since then, more than 7,800 defendants have been sentenced to death; of these, more than 1,400 have been executed. A total of