Why are death penalty executions scheduled in 5 states this week?

One execution was held on Sept. 20 and two more on Sept. 24. If the two remaining – set for Sept. 26 – take place, it will mark the most in one week in the U.S. since July 2003. Marcellus Williams was put to death in Missouri despite objections by the victims’ family. 

First Look

Death row inmates in five states are scheduled to be put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number of executions that defies a years-long trend of decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the United States.

The first execution was carried out on Sept. 20 in South Carolina. Two more death row inmates, in Missouri and Texas, were pronounced dead the evening of Sept. 24 following executions. If the two remaining scheduled executions, in Alabama and Oklahoma, are carried out this week, it will mark the first time in more than 20 years – since July 2003 – that five were held in seven days, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.

If this week’s remaining executions are completed, the United States will have reached 1,600 executions since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, said Robin Maher, the center’s executive director.

“Two on a single day is unusual, and four on two days in the same week is also very unusual,” Mr. Maher said.

Here are some things to know about executions set this week across the country.

How did 5 executions get set for a 1-week span?

Experts say five executions being scheduled within one week is simply an anomaly that resulted from courts or elected officials in individual states setting dates around the same time after inmates exhausted their appeals.

“I’m not aware of any reason other than coincidence,” said Eric Berger, a law professor at the University of Nebraska with expertise in the death penalty and lethal injection.

Mr. Berger said some factors can result in a backlog of executions, such as a state’s inability to obtain the lethal drugs necessary to carry them out, which happened in South Carolina, or a moratorium that resulted from botched executions, like what happened in Oklahoma.

South Carolina

The first of the five executions took place on Sept. 20, when South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death for the 1997 killing of a convenience store clerk during a robbery. It was South Carolina’s first execution in 13 years, an unintended delay caused by the inability of state prison officials to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections. To carry out executions, the state switched from a three-drug method to a new protocol of using a single sedative, pentobarbital.

Missouri

In Missouri on the evening of Sept. 24, Marcellus Williams was put to death by lethal injection for the 1998 stabbing death of a woman in the St. Louis suburb of University City. Mr. Williams’ attorneys argued on Sept. 23 that the state Supreme Court should halt his execution over alleged procedural errors in jury selection, and the prosecution’s alleged mishandling of the murder weapon. His clemency petition focused heavily on how the victim’s relatives wanted Mr. Williams’ sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole. But the state’s high court rejected those arguments, and Gov. Mike Parson denied Mr. Williams’ clemency request, paving the way for his execution to proceed.

Texas

Also on Sept. 24, Texas death row inmate Travis Mullis was executed by lethal injection. Mr. Mullis, a man with a long history of mental illness who has repeatedly sought to waive his right to appeal his death sentence, was sentenced to death for killing his 3-month-old son in January 2008. In a letter submitted to U.S. District Judge George Hanks in Houston, Mr. Mullis wrote in February that he had no desire to challenge his case any further and stated that “his punishment fit the crime.” The 38-year-old is the fourth inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.

Alabama

Alabama is preparing to carry out the nation’s second execution ever using nitrogen gas on Sept. 26, after becoming the first state to use the new procedure in January. Alan Miller, who was given a reprieve in 2022 after his execution was called off when officials were unable to connect an intravenous line, was sentenced to die after being convicted of killing three men during back-to-back workplace shootings in 1999.

Oklahoma

In Oklahoma, Emmanuel Littlejohn is set to receive a lethal injection on Sept. 26, after being sentenced to die for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner during a robbery. Mr. Littlejohn has admitted to his role in the robbery, but claims he did not fire the fatal shot. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 last month to recommend Gov. Kevin Stitt spare Mr. Littlejohn’s life, but the governor has yet to make a clemency decision.

This story was reported by The Associated Press.