Delaware's highest court is the supreme court, composed of a chief justice and four associate justices, all appointed by the governor and confirmed by the senate for 12-year terms, as are all state judges. Other state courts include the court of chancery, comprising a chancellor and two vice-chancellors, and the superior court, which has a president judge and 16 associate judges. There are also judges on the Court of Common Pleas in Wilmington.
Delaware was the last state to abolish the whipping post. During the 1900–42 period, 1,604 prisoners (22% of the state's prison population) were beaten with a cat-o'-nine-tails. The whipping post, nicknamed "Red Hannah," was used for the last time in 1952 but was not formally abolished until 1972. The death penalty is authorized in Delaware, with lethal injection as the method of execution. Delaware has executed 25 persons since 1930, thirteen of whom were put to death between 1977 and 2003. In 2003 there were 19 persons under sentence of death. In 2001, Delaware had a total crime rate of 4,052.8 per 100,000 population, including a total of 4,868 violent crimes and 27,399 property crimes in that year. As of June 2001, there were 7,122 inmates held in state and federal correctional facilities, an increase of 1.1% over the previous year. The state's incarceration rate stood at 505 per 100,000 inhabitants.