One hundred and twenty-two people, one hundred and nineteen male and three female, were executed in the United States in 1944, eighty-four by electrocution, twenty-four by gas chamber, thirteen by hanging, and one by firing squad.
The U.S. territory of Hawaii would conduct its final execution this year before abolishing the death penalty in 1957; it was not a state until 1959. Kansas carried out its first executions since 1870. The state had reinstated the death penalty in 1935 after initially abolishing it in 1907.
Finally, four notable executions were those of Emanuel Weiss, Louis Buchalter, and Louis Capone (no relation to Al Capone). In addition, Fourteen-year-old George Stinney was controversially executed by South Carolina, becoming the youngest person with an exact birth date confirmed to be executed in the United States in the 20th century. Stinney's murder conviction was posthumously vacated in 2014, with Judge Carmen Mullen finding that he had not received a fair trial. Judge Mullen stated that while Stinney may have actually been guilty, his pre-trial confession was likely coerced, his civil rights had been violated, and his execution was thus illegal.