Report: Over last 400 years, Virginia is No. 1 in Executions

• Out of 1,369 Executions  - 1,119 were Black
  

The Death Penalty Information Center, based in Washington, D.C., maintains a database of all executions in the United States since 1976, when the Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for capital punishment after a four-year hiatus. The center's Web site also includes the "Espy File," a historical capital-punishment catalog compiled by M. Watt Espy of Headland, Ala., who documented 14,634 civil executions that occurred in the United States to 1991. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said there are likely other executions that are not on Espy's list because they could not be confirmed by state records, newspaper stories or other sources. Most Virginia executions were hangings but at least two men were shot and two women, both murderers, were burned to death, one in 1737 and the other in 1745. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed executions to resume. Since then, Virginia has executed 92, second behind Texas with 323. As of Jan. 1, 1995, inmates have had the choice between electrocution and lethal injection. There have been 65 lethal injections, the most recent on July 22 when Mark Bailey was executed for the murder of his wife and 2-year-old son.