University of Pittsburgh

Death Penalty Use in the U.S. Remains Rare, Despite High-Profile Tennessee Case

The death penalty has returned to public attention after Tennessee inmate Christa Pike survived two lethal injection attempts, underscoring both the persistence and the practical limits of capital punishment in the United States. While still legal in a majority of states, executions remain concentrated in a small number of jurisdictions and are carried out far less often than in past decades.