The Data
The following table is for the United States and European countries where Homicide rate were available for 2017. One notable omission is Italy.
The first column mixes US States and European Countries.
The second column gives the state or country population from the 2020 US Census or Worldmeters.info for European countries.
The third thru seventh columns provide homicide numbers from the FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, for each state for the years 2015 – 2019. Alabama and Florida did not provide the FBI with complete information, as well as Illinois.
The eighth column is the total homicides for the five years for each state.
The ninth column is the calculated Annual Homicide Rate per 100,000 population calculated from the previous seven columns. For the European Countries this is value calculated for the year 2017 and provided by:
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/homicide_rate/Europe/
The tenth column is the number of executions for each state for the years 2015 – 2019.
The eleventh column is the total number of executions for each state since 1976 when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penaly under a “model of guided discretion”.
The twelve column is the year of the last execution for those states with no executions after 2015.
Summary
The Average Annual Homicide Rate per 100,000 for the fifty states and the District of Coumbia and excluding Alabama, Florida and Illinois is 4.6.
There is the perennial argument concerning the death penalty about being “tough on crime” or being “soft on crime”.
By sorting this data on descending Annual Homicide Rate per 100,000 some interesting dynamics are revealed.
The 24 States and the District of Columbia with above average Annual Homicide Rates account for 1,332 executions since 1976 and 78 executions in the years 2015 – 2019.
For the 34 European Countries available in this study, all but two, Russia and Ukraine, have an Annual Homicide Rate below the US average even though all of these countries, except Russia, have abolished the death penalty.
The 24 States with below average Annual Homicide Rates account for 32 executions since 1976 and just 3 in the years 2015 – 2019.
Conclusion
The bottom line is the states with the vast majority of executions in the United States are also the states with above average homicide rates. That does not seem to make the case for “tough on crime” nor the successful deterrent effect of the death penalty.