<P> 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). </P> <P> Three states abolished the death penalty for murder during the 19th century: Michigan in 1846 (has never executed a prisoner since achieving statehood), 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 Rhode Island is also a state with a long abolitionist background, having repealed the death penalty in 1852, though it was theoretically available for murder committed by a prisoner between 1872 and 1984 . </P> <P> 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 1957, both before their statehood . Puerto Rico repealed it in 1929 and the District of Columbia in 1981 . Arizona and Oregon abolished the death penalty by popular vote in 1916 and 1964 respectively, but both reinstated it, again by popular vote, some years later: Arizona in 1918 and Oregon in 1978 . Puerto Rico and Michigan are the only two U.S. jurisdictions to have explicitly prohibited capital punishment in their constitutions: in 1952 and 1964, respectively . </P> <P> Nevertheless, capital punishment continued to be used by a majority of states and the federal government for various crimes, especially murder and rape, from the creation of the United States up to the beginning of the 1960s . Until then, "save for a few mavericks, no one gave any credence to the possibility of ending the death penalty by judicial interpretation of constitutional law", according to abolitionist Hugo Bedau . </P>

Different types of death penalty in the us