People v. LaValle
People v. LaValle, 3 N.Y.3d 88 (2004), was a landmark decision by the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the U.S. state of New York, in which the court ruled that the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional because of the statute's direction on how the jury was to be instructed in case of deadlock. New York has since been without the death penalty, as the law has not been amended.
Glossip v. Gross
4) "Most places within the United States have abandoned its use": Beside being cruel, Breyer believed the death penalty is also unusual because it has become rare. Noting that 41 states had the death penalty before the Court blocked it in 1972, now there are 31, and only three, Texas, Missouri, and Florida, account for 80% of executions. After listing execution statistics, Breyer next considered polling data and an American Law Institute report. Breyer finally considered the death penalty as even more unusual by looking at a vote by the United Nations General Assembly, reports by the International Commission Against the Death Penalty and Amnesty International statistics.