<P> There were no executions in the United States between 1967 and 1977 . In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down capital punishment statutes in Furman v. Georgia, reducing all death sentences pending at the time to life imprisonment . </P> <P> Subsequently, a majority of states passed new death penalty statutes, and the court affirmed the legality of capital punishment in the 1976 case Gregg v. Georgia . Since then, more than 7,800 defendants have been sentenced to death; of these, more than 1,400 have been executed, 161 who were sentenced to death in the modern era were exonerated before their execution, and more than 2,900 are still on death row . </P> <P> 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 for the Spanish government . </P> <P> 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 . </P>

When was the death penalty first used in the united states