US, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, China: the only industrialized countries that still carry out executions. Only Belarus of the European countries still does. 
I don't think you would enjoy living in China or most Arab countries at the present, would you? Singapore has Draconian laws that also allow public beatings and life imprisonment for minor drug offenses. Taiwan: it is in the shadow, culturally, of China. It's ruling party at the moment insists it is moving to eliminate the death penalty--- but public polling shows it still is popular. Japan? Another Asian country and one with very different cultural norms, mores, and history than our own. So, one real exception.
We have about 3,000 people on death row, roughly. I have read that all but one or two were poor. Attorneys commonly refer to it as "the poor man's sentence." Do we, as a nation, ascribe to be like the (overwhelmingly) poorest, least educated countries on this planet?