By The Opinion
Sep 24, 2024, 11:31 AM EDT
In July 2003, it was applied in the United States, within a week, the death penalty for 5 prisoners who were on death row in various states.
It has been more than 20 years since that number of executions were carried out in the same period of time, but that is about to change.
And it is that, last Friday, the execution of Freddie Owens for the murder of a convenience store clerk during a robbery in 1997.
This It was the first execution in South Carolina in 13 years.and instead of being carried out using three drugs, it was modified by the use of a single sedative, pentobarbital.
Planned executions
This execution could be added to those of Marcellus Williams in Missouri, and Travis Mullis in Texas, who would receive the lethal injection this Tuesday.
Williams is charged with the 1998 stabbing death of a woman in the St. Louis suburb of University City, while Mullis, a man with a long history of mental illness, was sentenced to death for killing his 3-month-old son in January 2008.
Two other capital punishments are scheduled for next Thursday: that of Alan Miller in Alabama using nitrogen gas, and Emmanuel Littlejohn in Oklahoma.
Miller, who was given a reprieve until 2022 after his execution was called off because officials failed to connect an IV, was sentenced to death for killing three men in consecutive workplace shootings in 1999.
Littlejohn, meanwhile, was sentenced to death for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner during a robbery, and while he has admitted his role in the robbery, he maintains he did not shoot the victim.
Why were they scheduled this week?
About this series of scheduled executions, Univision News interviewed Eric Bergera law professor at the University of Nebraska with expertise in the death penalty and lethal injection.
The expert said this was simply an anomaly that resulted after courts or elected officials in certain states set dates that were roughly coincidental, after inmates exhausted their appeals. “I don’t know of any reason other than coincidence,” he said.
Speaking about the factors that may influence the accumulation of executions, he mentioned the lack of supply of lethal drugs necessary, what happened in South Carolina, or a moratorium on botched executionslike what happened in Oklahoma.
Continue reading:
– The prisoner who has been on death row in Texas for 21 years and is about to be executed.
– Florida death row inmate loses last hope of avoiding execution.