Which of the US states retain the death penalty and which methods do they use?

It saddens me too.

Americans aren’t more bloodthirsty than others. But we have a federal system so that abolition is on a state by state basis. State and local politicians have tried to stay away from difficult issues like the death penalty - and respond to the angriest voices in their communities.

Other factors in our political system have played a big part in keeping the death penalty. Judges and prosecutors are elected here. Following a particularly heinous crime, the loudest voices are from those who have an eye on their political futures and compete to see who can be the harshest, toughest and most punitive.

Over the past few years however, the death penalty issue has become much easier for politicians, mostly because the word is out about the awful baggage that comes with it. The trend is towards ending the death penalty. Six states have done this in the past 6 years, the number of executions has gone down dramatically as well as the number of new death sentences.

STATES WITH THE DEATH PENALTY (32)

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado,

Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho,

Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,

Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada,

New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon,

Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee,

Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming

Plus U.S. Military & U.S. Gov’t

Most of these rarely (if ever) use it:

2013- 39 executions (8 states)

Texas 15, Florida 7, Oklahoma 6, Ohio 3, Arizona 2, Missouri 2, Alabama 1, Georgia 1

2012- 43 (9 states)

Texas 15, Oklahoma 6, Arizona 6, Mississippi 6, Ohio 3, Florida 3, South Dakota 2, Idaho 1, Delaware 1.

2011- 43 executions: (12 states )

Texas 13, Alabama 6, Ohio 5, Georgia 4, Arizona 4, Florida 2, Mississippi 2, Oklahoma 2, Delaware 1, Idaho 1, South Carolina 1,Virginia 1

2010 - 46 executions (11 states)

Texas 17, Ohio 8, Alabama 5, Mississippi 3, Oklahoma 3, Virginia 3, Georgia 2, Louisiana 1, Florida 1, Utah 1, Washington , Pennsylvania 1

In 2009, there were 52 executions, carried out by just 11 states:

Texas 24, Alabama 6, Virginia 3, Oklahoma 3, Ohio 5, Georgia 3, South Carolina 2,

Florida 2, Tennessee 2, Indiana 1, Missouri 1

All of these states provide for lethal injections, and some also use electrocution, firing squad, hanging. For the methods used, take a look at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/state_by_state

Lethal injection is the overwhelming favorite. The number of people executed each year keeps going down but the number awaiting their turn keeps going up. In my state, California, there are over 700 people on death row with at least 20 added each year but only 12 have been executed in the past 30 years. Natural causes is the leading cause of death there followed by suicide. It costs 10 times as much to process a death penalty case as the same case would cost if the person was sentenced to life in prison but that doesn't seem to impress the masses.

Almost all states have it. Usually death by leathal injection. It has to be a horrible crime for it to get the death penalty.

Simple answer as to which have it http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without... - 32 have it and 18 don't. And the federal government uses it. Texas does by far the most executions.

The overwhelmingly most popular method is lethal injection but other methods are still used, notably the electric chair. Get that wrong and you can set the prisoner on fire - this has happened a couple of times in Florida so they've moved towards lethal injection. Nebraska used to have the electric chair as its only method and fell into a hole when it was ruled by the state supreme court to be "cruel and unusual". So they actually didn't have a way of carrying out the sentence for a little while until the state legislature legalised lethal injection. California and a few others still have the option of gas but it hasn't been used since goodness knows how long. Washington is the only one that has the option of hanging.

From a UK point of view, the silly thing is how long prisoners sentenced to death stay on death row. More actually die of natural causes on death row than actually get executed. Do Americans actually believe in using the death penalty or not? Before UK abolition in 1965, the absolute limit was six weeks after sentencing to exhaust all possible appeals and then you would be hanged by the measured long drop. This is about as quick and humane as you get - get the length of rope calculated right according to the prisoner's weight and it's instant death from a broken neck. The USA has a long history of getting the sums wrong, so they aren't keen on it. So we never had a debate about the method - we just abolished it because it's plain wrong.

The thing is that far more people are elected in the USA, including judges, so anyone seen to be tough on crime has an advantage. British judges are not elected and are appointed as highly-regarded members of the legal profession, and that just has to be the right way to do it. They know, unlike politicians and members of the general public, what they actually have to deal with every day in court.