Capital punishment in Singapore
In 2012, a couple of American elected officials and office-seekers have suggested that Singapore's success in combating drug abuse should be examined as a model for the United States. Michael Bloomberg, a former Mayor of New York City, said that the United States could learn a thing or two from nations like Singapore when it came to drug trafficking, noting that "executing a handful of people saves thousands and thousands of lives." The last execution in New York took place in 1963. Several courts have ruled that the death penalty violates the New York Constitution (see "People v. LaValle"). In 2007, the state of New York abolished the death penalty. 20 states, plus Washington D.C., have abolished the death penalty, with the most recent being Washington state in 2018. However, certain states, such as Texas, still have similar or even higher rates of execution than Singapore.
Gary Lee Sampson
Although the United States has a federal "death row" at the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, in Indiana (where federal death row inmates are executed), U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf of the U.S. District Court in Boston ordered that Sampson be executed in New Hampshire. However, before the execution could take place, Judge Wolf ordered a new sentencing trial for Sampson.