Capital punishment in the United States

In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 states currently have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums.

This article is about an overview of capital punishment amongst all jurisdictions in the United States. For capital punishment by the federal government, see Capital punishment by the United States federal government.

The United States is one of four advanced democracies, along with Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, and one of 54 countries worldwide where the death penalty is applied regularly.

The existence of capital punishment in the United States can be traced to early colonial Virginia. There were no executions in the United States between 1967 and 1977. In 1972, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down capital punishment statutes in Furman v. Georgia, reducing all pending death sentences to life imprisonment at the time. Subsequently, a majority of states enacted new death penalty statutes, and the court affirmed the legality of the practice in the 1976 case Gregg v. Georgia. Since then, more than 8,700 defendants have been sentenced to death; of these, more than 1,550 have been executed. At least 190 people who were sentenced to death since 1972 have since been exonerated, about 2.2% or one in 46. As of April 13, 2022, about 2,400 to 2,500 convicts are still on death row.

The Trump administration's Department of Justice announced its plans to resume executions for federal crimes in 2019. On July 14, 2020, Daniel Lewis Lee became the first inmate executed by the federal government since 2003. Thirteen federal death row inmates have been executed since federal executions resumed in July 2020, all under Trump. The last and most recent federal execution was of Dustin Higgs, who was executed on January 16, 2021. On July 1, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that a moratorium on the federal death penalty was being reinstated.

As of March 2024, there were 42 inmates on federal death row.

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