<Li> In Mississippi, Jimmy Lee Gray died after being in the gas chamber for 9 minutes . During the procedure, Gray thrashed and banged his head against the metal pole behind his head while struggling to breathe . </Li> <P> The largest number of clemencies was granted in January 2003 in Illinois when outgoing Governor George Ryan, who had already imposed a moratorium on executions, pardoned four death - row inmates and commuted the sentences of the remaining 167 to life in prison without the possibility of parole . When Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation abolishing the death penalty in Illinois in March 2011, he commuted the sentences of the fifteen inmates on death row to life imprisonment . </P> <P> Previous post-Furman mass clemencies took place in 1986 in New Mexico, when Governor Toney Anaya commuted all death sentences because of his personal opposition to the death penalty . In 1991, outgoing Ohio Governor Dick Celeste commuted the sentences of eight prisoners, among them all four women on the state's death row . And during his two terms (1979 - 1987) as Florida's Governor, Bob Graham, although a strong death penalty supporter who had overseen the first post-Furman involuntary execution as well as 15 others, agreed to commute the sentences of six people on the grounds of doubts about guilt or disproportionality . </P> <P> All executions were suspended through the country between September 2007 and April 2008 . At that time, the U.S. Supreme Court was examining the constitutionality of lethal injection in Baze v. Rees . This was the longest period with no executions in the United States since 1982 . The Supreme Court ultimately upheld this method in a 7--2 ruling . </P>

What states in the us use the death penalty