Capital punishment in Delaware

Capital punishment in Delaware was formally abolished in 2024. However, it had not been enforced after Delaware’s capital punishment statues were declared unconstitutional by the Delaware Supreme Court on August 2, 2016. The ruling retroactively applies to earlier death sentences, and remaining Delaware death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The capital statute for first-degree murder under Title 11, Chapter 42, Section 09, of the Delaware Code was fully repealed on September 26, 2024.

Delaware has the fourth highest number of executions per capita between 1976 and 2023, behind Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri Sixteen people were executed in the state after the Gregg v. Georgia decision of 1976. The last person executed in the state was 28-year-old Shannon Johnson, who was executed on April 20, 2012.

As of 2015, 64 percent of Delawareans oppose capital punishment, compared to 30 percent who support it.

In June 2024, the Delaware House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill to abolish the death penalty in statute, which would make the Delaware Supreme Court's ruling legally irrelevant. In September 2024, Governor John Carney signed the bill, fully repealing the death penalty in Delaware.