America is trying a new form of corporal punishment

Last night, Alabama began carrying out the world’s first judicial execution using nitrogen gas, after a pair of last-minute appeals to the Supreme Court were denied.

• The condemned prisoner was one of three men convicted in the 1988 murder of a woman whose husband hired them to kill her.

Why it matters: If Alabama’s novel execution is deemed successful, it’s likely that nitrogen gas will be examined by other US states where the death penalty is legal. This is because lethal injection – the most widely-used method of execution – has become increasingly harder to perform following a 2012 EU export ban on such drugs and a recent streak of botched injections.

• Some experts and rights groups, including the UN Human Rights Council, have criticized Alabama’s decision to use nitrogen gas. They argue the new method is unproven in executions, potentially unsafe for witnesses, and could violate multiple international treaties regarding the care of prisoners.

Big picture: Use of the death penalty in the US has declined considerably this century, falling from a total of 98 executions in 1999 to 11 as of 2021.

But that trend has started to reverse. Total US executions rose to 18 in 2022 – and increased again last year to reach 24, the highest figure in a half-decade.

⚖️ Zoom out: The death penalty is currently legal in 21 US states, and can also be used by the federal government and US military. America is one of 52 countries featuring the death penalty, with three nations – China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia – accounting for 90+% of all executions in 2022.

• The share of US citizens in favor of the death penalty peaked at 80% in 1994, and has steadily declined over the past three decades to its current rate of 53%, per Gallup polling.

📊 Flash poll: In general, do you support the existence of the death penalty?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other