The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area Moratorium There is no moratorium on executions in place at the federal level. In January 2006, the New Jersey state legislature passed a one-year moratorium on executions by the state. In December 2006, the one-year moratorium ended, and in January 2007 a report by the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission recommended abolishing the death penalty,46 in response to which the New Jersey legislature abolished the death penalty on 17 December 2007.47 Method of execution Although methods of execution vary from state to state, they include 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 until 8 February 2008 the sole method of execution was electrocution.48 Between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008, 20 people were executed by lethal injection, and two were executed by electrocution.49 Capital punishment by lethal injection has been suspended in several states amid concerns about both the constitutionality of currently used lethal-injection protocols and whether the process is operating properly. On 16 April 2008, the US Supreme Court decided in Baze v. Rees that the use of lethal injection does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment.50 The case was a challenge to the use of lethal injection in the state of Kentucky, a state that had only used lethal injection once. Therefore, the court had limited information on which to determine whether it constituted cruel and unusual punishment. In other states, including California, Missouri, and Tennessee, federal courts, with a different record before them, had found lethal-injection procedures to be unconstitutional. In Nebraska, which used electrocution as the sole means of carrying out the death penalty, the state’s Supreme Court stayed the execution of an inmate in May 46  “New Jersey Death Penalty Commission”, op. cit., note 36. 47  An Act Abolishing the Death Penalty, State of New Jersey, <http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/ A1000/773_I1.PDF>. 48  “Nebraska Supreme Court Rules Electrocution Unconstitutional”, Death Penalty Information Center website, 8 February 2008, <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/newsanddev.php?scid=6>; “Nebraska (USA). State Court Says Electric Chair Unconstitutional”, Hands Off Cain website, 8 February 2008, <http://www.handsoffcain.info/news/index.php?iddocumento=10302657>. 49  US response, op. cit., note 38. 50  “Lethal Injection: Moratorium on Executions Ends After Supreme Court Decision”, Death Penalty Information Center website, <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=1686>; see Baze v. Rees, United States Supreme Court, 16 April 2008. 9