74 The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area On 31 May 2005, the North Carolina House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved a moratorium measure, clearing the way for the House to vote on the measure.182 However, the House vote was delayed, and the bill has since been amended to implement a study on various aspects related to the death penalty rather than a moratorium. In March 2005, members of the Connecticut Judiciary Committee voted on legislation to repeal the state’s death penalty; the bill failed to pass in the House. Similarly, in March 2005, the New Mexico House of Representatives passed a bill to abolish the death penalty; the bill failed to pass in the House. In 2006, a moratorium bill was introduced in the Mississippi legislature, but the attempt was not successful. A similar situation took place in Virginia. In 2006, both Tennessee and Alabama state legislatures had moratorium bills introduced, which have now been moved to their House Judiciary Committees. Method of execution The possible methods of execution are lethal injection, electrocution, the gas chamber, hanging, and shooting. The most common method of execution is lethal injection, which is either the sole method or a possible method of execution in all states except Nebraska, where the sole method of execution is electrocution. On 12 June 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Hill v. McDonough that convicted individuals may bring civil rights challenges against lethal injection as a method of execution. Although the Court did not rule on the constitutionality of lethal injection as an execution procedure, it determined that convicted individuals who believed that the protocol most commonly used for lethal injections caused unnecessary pain and suffering could pursue a claim under a civil rights statute. Statistics Death sentences According to official statistics, 3,370 prisoners were on civilian death row by the end of the first half of 2006, compared to 3,455 prisoners as of 30 June 2005. There are nine prisoners on the US military’s death row. Executions Recently, the death penalty has primarily been exercised at the state level; there have been no executions at the federal level since 2003. Similarly, since 1961, there have been no executions under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 182 The North Carolina state Senate passed a moratorium bill in 2003.