Death penalty's top 5: Which US states have the most executions?

It's not often that the US Supreme Court stays an execution, as it did in the Duane Buck case on Sept. 15. But the justices routinely consider such requests, given than 34 states permit capital punishment. Here are the five states with the most executions between 2007-10.

- Leigh Montgomery, Staff

4. Oklahoma

Oklahoma has executed 11 people – eight white and three black – since 2007, for an annual rate of about three executions a year.

The state joined Ohio in substituting a new drug, pentobarbital, for sodium thiopental to carry out three additional executions in 2011. Critics say the drug, a sedative used to euthanize animals, has not been tested for this purpose. Lundbeck, the Denmark-based US supplier, is also opposed to its use in executions. Oklahoma was also the last state to execute a person for a crime committed as a juvenile, which it did in 2003.