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1800 BCE
First Account of the Death Penalty
The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. -
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How were people executed in colonial America
During colonial times, cruel and painful methods like burning or crushing people to death were sometimes used. However, since 1776, all but a few executions have been carried out in one of five ways: hanging, firing squad, the electric chair, the gas chamber, or lethal injection. -
The First Death Penalty in America
The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Kendall was executed for being a spy for Spain. -
Creation of the Electric Chair
This execution method, conceived in 1881 by a Buffalo, New York dentist named Alfred P. Southwick, was developed throughout the 1880s as a supposed humane alternative to hanging, and first used in 1890. This execution method has been used in the United States and, for several decades, in the Philippines. -
First Woman Executed in America
She was executed on March 20, 1899, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility for the murder of her stepdaughter Ida Place. -
First Use of Gas Chamber in America
The gas chamber was first adopted in the U.S. state of Nevada in 1921 in an effort to provide a more humane form of capital punishment. On February 8, 1924, Gee Jon became the first person to be executed by lethal gas. -
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George Stinny
In 1944, George Stinney Jr. was found guilty for allegedly forcing himself on and then taking the lives of two pre-teen girls. The only "evidence" against Stinney was that he'd spoken with the two girls at some point before their passing. An all-white jury deliberated for 10 minutes, after a trial that took just a day. At 14, Stinney was the youngest person executed in the US in the 20th century - with less than three months passing between the incident and his execution. -
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How many people have been executed in US since 1973?
1,543 people -
Creation of Lethal Injection
Lethal injection—now the most widely used method of execution in the United States—was first adopted by the U.S. state of Oklahoma in 1977, because it was considered cheaper and more humane than either electrocution or lethal gas. -
The Case that Banned the Execution of the Mentally Challanged
Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), prohibiting the execution of persons who were mentally retarded at the time of the of the offense. -
How Many States have the death penalty
As of 2020, the death penalty is legal in 25 states. A total of 22 states – plus Washington D.C. – have abolished the death penalty, and three states have a governor-imposed moratorium. -
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How many people are currently on death row in the US 2022?
The January 1, 2022 report includes the following statistics: The number of prisoners on death rows or facing capital retrials or resentencings across the nation was 2,436, a decrease of 19 from October 1, 2021. It was down by 92 (3.6%) from the 2,528 reported on January 1, 2021.