Examine capital punishment in the United States.

The most severe sentence used in the United States is capital punishment, or execution; capital punishment is limited to the crime of murder in the first degree. More than 15,000 confirmed executions have been carried out in America under civil authority; today, there are more than 3,000 people on death row. Thirty-five states and the federal government retain the death penalty as a form of punishment. The method used in the majority of executions is lethal injection. Some 250 wrongfully convicted criminals have been exonerated in recent years because of DNA evidence.

Confirmed correct