Jurek v. Texas

There are five basic types of execution in the United States: hanging, firing squads, electrocution, lethal gas, and lethal injection. Each of the 38 states with a death-penalty statute authorizes at least one of these forms. In addition, lethal injection is the method authorized by the federal government.

Lethal injection is by far the predominant method of execution, with 32 states authorizing it as of 1997. In 1997, 92 percent of all executions took place by this method, as compared with 28 percent in 1987. With 284 lethal injections, it was also the most common method among those administered to the 432 prisoners executed between 1977 and 1997, as compared with 134 electrocutions, nine killed by lethal gas, three by hanging, and two by firing squad.

Sixty-eight of the 74 executions during 1997 were by lethal injection, and six were by electrocution. Texas led the nation in executions, with 37. Virginia had nine; Missouri had six; Arkansas four; Alabama three; Arizona, Illinois, and South Carolina two each; and the remaining nine states one each. Of the 74 men executed, 41 were non-Hispanic white, 26 non-Hispanic African American, four white Hispanic, and one each black Hispanic, American Indian, and Asian American.