[Y_Y]

Referring to "the American continent" is a very South American thing to do. I think in the US they consider themselves to be sharing a continent with just Mexico and Canada.

Furthermore I think you don't go far enough. Around the world, abolishing the death penalty seems to be a mark of high development, apart from Japan (and arguably China and India) there aren't any highly developed nations that are still killing people.

[thraxil]

Not getting into anything else, but I will remark that I got in trouble in 5th grade (in a US school) and a letter sent home to my parents about my bad attitude and showing of disrespect towards my teacher after she asserted that Mexico was in "South America" and that "North America" consisted exclusively of the USA and Canada. I argued with her and neither of us would back down. It was the first time I'd ever been in any kind of trouble. My parents were proud and took me out for ice cream. US public schools have some decent teachers but also some really ignorant ones.

[qwytw]

Stretching the definition of "high development" here a bit (but since you're considering China and India) Belarus still has the death penalty (they were executing at least 1 almost every year until 2020).