Title: Human rights in the United States
Content:  Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the United States, currently used by 28 states, the federal government, and the military. , there have been 1,517 executions in the United States since 1976 (when the death penalty was reinstated after it had been effectively invalidated as a punishment by a 1972 Supreme Court ruling). The United States is one of 55 countries worldwide that uses the death penalty, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution. Among the 56 countries categorized as 'Very high' on the Human Development Index, it is one of only 12 that retain 
Title: Capital punishment in the United States
Content:  The first recorded death sentence in the British North American colonies was carried out in 1608 on Captain George Kendall, who was executed by firing squad at the Jamestown colony for spying on behalf of the Spanish government. Executions in colonial America were also carried out by hanging. The Bill of Rights adopted in 1789 included the Eighth Amendment which prohibited cruel and unusual punishment. The Fifth Amendment was drafted with language implying a possible use of the death penalty, requiring a grand jury indictment for "capital crime" and a due process of law for deprivation of "life" by the government. The Fourteenth Amendment adopted in 1868 also requires a due process of law for deprivation of life by any states. The Espy file, compiled by M. Watt Espy and John Ortiz Smykla, lists 15,269 people executed in the United States and its predecessor colonies between 1608 and 1991. From 1930 to 2002, there were 4,661 executions in the U.S., about two-thirds of them in the first 20 years. Additionally, the United States Army executed 135 soldiers between 1916 and 1955 (the most recent).
Title: Capital punishment in the United States
Content:  A total of 23 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Below is a table of the states and the date that the state abolished the death penalty. Michigan became the first English-speaking territory in the world to abolish capital punishment in 1847. Although treason remained a crime punishable by the death penalty in Michigan despite the 1847 abolition, no one was ever executed under that law, and Michigan's 1962 Constitutional Convention codified that the death penalty was fully abolished. Vermont has abolished the death penalty for all crimes, but has an invalid death penalty statue for treason. When it abolished the death penalty in 2019, New Hampshire explicitly did not commute the death sentence of the sole person remaining on the state's death row.
Title: Human rights in the United States
Content:  death penalty has been abolished in the District of Columbia and fourteen states, mainly in the Northeast and Midwest. The death penalty has a complex legal history. While modern critics have challenged capital punishment on grounds that it violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on the use of "cruel and unusual punishment", the United States Supreme Court has held that it does not. At the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, societal moral standards did not hold the death penalty was "cruel and unusual", so it was used throughout early American history. However, the death penalty was temporarily halted 
Title: Capital punishment debate in the United States
Content:  The debate over capital punishment in the United States existed as early as the colonial period. As of June 2021, it remains a legal penalty within 27 states, the federal government, and military criminal justice systems. The states of Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Washington abolished the death penalty within the last decade alone. Gallup, Inc. has monitored support for the death penalty in the United States since 1937 by asking "Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?" Opposition to the death penalty peaked in 1966, with 47% of Americans opposing it; by comparison, 42% supported the death penalty and 11% had "no opinion." The death penalty increased in popularity throughout the 1970s and 1980s, when crime went up and politicians campaigned on fighting crime and drugs; in 1994, the opposition rate was less than 20%, less than in any other year. Since then, the crime rate has fallen and opposition to the death penalty has strengthened again. In the October 2020 poll, 55% of respondents said they were in favor and 43% were opposed.
Title: Capital punishment in the United States
Content:  [[File:Death penalty in the United States with hiatuses.svg|thumb|250px|Without the death penalty: With the death penalty: ]] Capital punishment in the United States is a legal penalty in 27 states, American Samoa, the federal government, and the military, and is abolished in 23 states. Capital punishment is, in practice, only applied for aggravated murders committed by mentally competent adults (aged 18 and over). Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, only 21 states have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other six, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums. The existence of capital punishment in the United States can be traced to early colonial Virginia. Along with Japan, Taiwan, and 
Title: Capital punishment
Content:  a formal resolution that throughout the world, it is desirable to "progressively restrict the number of offences for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment". In the United States, Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty, on 18 May 1846. The death penalty was declared unconstitutional between 1972 and 1976 based on the Furman v. Georgia case, but the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia case once again permitted the death penalty under certain circumstances. Further limitations were placed on the death penalty in Atkins v. Virginia (2002; death penalty unconstitutional for people with an intellectual disability) and Roper v. 
Title: Capital punishment in the United States
Content:  the United States is one of four advanced democracies and the only Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the United States as one of four countries to still use this method (along with China, Thailand, and Vietnam). It is common practice for the condemned to be administered sedatives prior to execution, regardless of the method used. There were no executions in the United States between 1967 and 1977. In 1972, the 
Title: Capital punishment in the United States
Content:  Three states abolished the death penalty for murder during the 19th century: Michigan (which has never executed a prisoner since achieving statehood), in 1847, Wisconsin, in 1853 and Maine, in 1887. Rhode Island is also a state with a long abolitionist background, having repealed the death penalty in 1852, though it was theoretically available for murder committed by a prisoner between 1872 and 1984. Other states which abolished the death penalty for murder before Gregg v. Georgia include Minnesota in 1911, Vermont in 1964, Iowa and West Virginia in 1965, and North Dakota in 1973. Hawaii abolished the death penalty in 1948 and Alaska in 
Title: Gregg v. Georgia
Content:  Utah was the first state to resume executions after capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, when Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad on January 17, 1977. Following his conviction and death sentence, Gilmore insisted he wanted to be executed, and for this reason some consider the national moratorium to have only ended in 1979 with electrocution of John Spenkelink, who resisted his execution. The July 2 Cases mark the beginning of the United States' modern legal conversation about the death penalty. Major subsequent developments include forbidding the death penalty for rape (Coker v. Georgia), restricting the death penalty in cases of felony murder (Enmund v. Florida), exempting the mentally handicapped (Atkins v. Virginia) and juvenile murderers (Roper v. Simmons) from the 

Question: when did the united states start using the death penalty?
Answer: the beginning.
1608.