Death penalty in the United States gradually declining

But just nine states conducted lethal injections this year, and two — Texas with 16 and Florida with 7 — accounted for nearly 60 percent of the total.

Texas is among the active death-penalty states scrambling to find new lethal injection protocols after European-based manufacturers banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions.

Among them is Danish-based Lundbeck, which manufactures pentobarbital, the most commonly used — either as a single drug, or in combination with others — to execute prisoners.

States have been forced to try new drug combinations or go to loosely regulated compounding pharmacies that manufacturer variations of the drugs banned by the larger companies, according to an investigation last month by CNN’s Deborah Feyerick.