Capital punishment: Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods.

Margie Velma Barfield was an American serial killer who was convicted of one murder but was linked to seven murders in total. She became the first woman in the United States to be executed after the resumption of capital punishment in 1976, and the first since 1962. She was also the first woman to be executed by lethal injection.

1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1962nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 962nd year of the 2nd millennium, the 62nd year of the 20th century, and the 3rd year of the 1960s decade.

November 2 is the 306th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 59 days remain until the end of the year.