Abolished
There are 17 states that have abolished their death penalty; federal cases there, Washington D.C., and the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands may still have death penalty verdicts and sentences. New Mexico is currently in the position of having replaced its death penalty with a sentence of life without parole, but its law doing so did not address those previously convicted, cases in progress, or crimes committed before its enactment; there are two inmates with a death sentence there. The jurisdictions without the death penalty, listed by year of repeal are Michigan (1st May 18, 1846); Wisconsin (2nd 1853); Maine (3rd 1887); Minnesota (4th 1911); Puerto Rico (constitutionally in 1929); Hawaii (5th 1948 - prior to statehood); Alaska (6th 1957 - prior to statehood); Vermont (with the exception of a lingering statute for treason -1964); Iowa & West Virginia (1965); North Dakota (1973); Washington, D.C. (1981); Massachusetts (ruled unconstitutional) & Rhode Island (1984); New Jersey & New York (ruled unconstitutional - 2007); New Mexico (2009); Illinois (2011); Connecticut (2012).
Read more about this topic: List Of United States Death Row Inmates
Famous quotes containing the word abolished:
“Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)