Death_Penalty_2005_nowy.qxd 2005-09-08 17:00 Page 35 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Constitution.113 In December 2004, the Supreme Court of Kansas found that the state’s death-penalty law was invalid under the federal Constitution because it gave the prosecution an unfair advantage over defendants during the sentencing process. Moratorium There is no moratorium on executions in place at the federal level. At the state level, Illinois is the only state that has instituted a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. On 31 May 2005, the North Carolina House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved a moratorium measure, and it is now up to the state House of Representatives to vote on the measure.114 In May 2005, the Texas state Senate passed a measure that provides for life imprisonment without parole as an alternative to the death penalty for individuals sentenced for murder. In March 2005, the Connecticut Judiciary Committee voted for legislation to abolish the state’s death penalty; it is now up to the state House of Representatives to debate this measure. The New Mexico House of Representatives passed a bill in March 2005 to abolish the death penalty; the bill is now pending in the state Senate. 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. STATISTICS Death sentences According to official statistics, 3,503 prisoners were on civilian death row at the end of 2004, while 3,455 prisoners were there at the end of the reporting period on 30 June 2005. There are seven prisoners on the US military’s death row. 113 114 The court found that the sentencing provisions were coercive because they required judges to tell juries in capital cases that, if they deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict during the sentencing phase of a trial, the judge would impose a more lenient sentence. The North Carolina state Senate passed a moratorium bill in 2003. 35