Economist.com | Lethal injection: "Apart from Japan, which carries out very few executions, the United States is the only big democracy to retain capital punishment. Abolitionists have made some progress in recent years, thanks to mounting worries about judicial error in capital cases. Twelve of America's 50 states have abolished the punishment, and several more have not used it since the Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976 after a nine-year moratorium."