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Legal penalty in the U. S. state of Nevada

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U. S. state of Nevada. There have been no executions in Nevada since 2006, in part because of a shortage of drugs used in executions by lethal injection. In April 2021, the Nevada Assembly passed a bill that would have repealed the capital punishment statute. However, the state senate did not act on the matter after Governor Steve Sisolak said that he believes some crimes deserve the death penalty, suggesting that he would veto the bill. The last person executed in the state was convicted murderer Daryl Mack.

The first recorded execution in the area that is now Nevada was the hanging of John Carr for murdering Bernhard Cherry of Carson City on November 30, 1860, and the first recorded legal execution in the Nevada Territory was the hanging of Allen Milstead outside Dayton for killing Lyon County Commissioner T. Varney at Ragtown. Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976, 12 people have been executed by the state. The most recent execution was in 2006, when Daryl Mack was executed for murder. There are approximately 77 people on death row. Elizabeth Potts, who was hanged in 1890, was the only woman legally executed in the state, alongside her husband Josiah Potts, for the murder and partial dismemberment of Miles Faucett. Hanging was the method prescribed by law from 1860 to 1921. The venue of executions moved from the counties to Nevada State Prison in 1903. In response to Mormon preferences, the Nevada State Legislature passed a statute in 1910 that became effective in January 1911, allowing condemned prisoners to choose between execution by shooting or hanging. On May 14, 1913, Andriza Mircovich became the only inmate in Nevada to be executed by shooting. After the warden of Nevada State Prison was unable to find five men to form a firing squad, a shooting machine was built to carry out Mircovich's execution. A law in 1921 made the gas chamber the sole means of execution. It was used from the 1924 execution of Gee Jon to the 1979 execution of Jesse Bishop, both at Nevada State Prison. A total of 32 men were executed by gas chamber in Nevada between this time. Lethal injection became the sole method of execution in Nevada by 1985, starting with the execution of 47 year old Carroll Edward Cole. The use of cyanide gas in Nevada was used as a plot device in the short story "Nevada Gas" by Raymond Chandler.

When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is decided by the jury and must be unanimous. In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, the judge has discretion to order a retrial or impose a life sentence. Under the Nevada Constitution, clemency can be granted by the governor of Nevada with advice and consent of a board on which he sits, and also includes justices of the state supreme court and the state attorney general. Lethal injection is the only method of execution in Nevada.

The men's death row in Nevada is located at Ely State Prison. The death row for women is in the Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center (previously Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center). The execution chamber, which opened in 2016, is located at Ely State Prison. Prior to 2016, executions by the state of Nevada were still designated to be carried out in the former gas chamber at the otherwise closed Nevada State Prison. Due to a lack of elevator access, this former gas chamber was not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Greg Cox, the director of the Nevada Department of Corrections, stated that he anticipated a legal challenge to carrying out the execution there if an execution date is set. That, and the inconvenience of re opening the prison to conduct an execution at the only place the law allowed, led to the construction of the new execution chamber at Ely and the amendment of the law, making it the new sole place for executions. There was some local humor about the old place of execution being closed because it was unsafe.