Big Mongo
2024-09-24 14:42:53 UTC
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We’re Witnessing the Worst Execution Spree in Three Decades
This week is shaping up to be a very bad one for death penalty opponents
in the United States. If all goes according to plan, states will put five
people to death in a one-week span ending Thursday. That is an unusual,
though not unprecedented, number of executions in such a short period of
time.
To understand just how unusual it is, consider that in 2023, the total
number of executions for the entire year was 24, less than one execution
every other week. In 2022, 18 people were put to death, for a rate of
roughly one execution every third week.
Indeed, one would have to go back almost three decades, to 1997, to find a
parallel to what may unfold this week. During a seven-day period in May
that year, Texas executed five people.
But unlike 1997, this week’s executions will occur in five different
states.
It all started on Friday when South Carolina executed Khalil Allah,
formerly known as Freddie Owens, its first execution since 2011. The
others are planned for Tuesday and Thursday in Texas, Missouri, Alabama,
and Oklahoma, all of which regularly carry out executions.
It is just a coincidence that all these states are moving in lockstep.
Coincidence or not, a close look at each of the cases in which someone
will be executed this week highlights not just the kind of horrible crimes
that can land someone on death row but also many of the death penalty’s
crippling problems.
This week’s executions include two cases in which there are substantial
doubts about whether the person being executed is actually innocent. Two
others illustrate the fact that the death penalty is often used against
people who are poor, vulnerable, abused, and in many ways broken, not
against the worst criminals. The fifth highlights America’s futile search
for a method of execution that will be safe, reliable, and humane.
And the fact that three of the five people who will be executed this week
are Black only underlines the continuing salience of race in determining
who gets sentenced to death and executed.
All told, this week’s execution spree should unsettle all Americans,
whether or not they support the death penalty. It will offer further
reasons for why capital punishment should be abolished everywhere in this
country.
To see why, let’s start with last Friday’s execution of Khalil Allah. He
was convicted of the 1997 murder of Irene Grainger Graves, a single mother
of three who worked as a convenience store clerk.
No physical evidence connected Allah to the crime. The key evidence
against him was testimony from his co-defendant, Steven Golden, who said
Allah shot Graves.
Golden did so after reaching a deal with prosecutors that he would not be
given a death sentence in return for his testimony. Allah maintained his
innocence from the time he was arrested to the day he died.
And just before South Carolina put him to death, new evidence came to
light suggesting that what he had been saying for years was true. Last
Wednesday, Golden recanted his testimony and signed an affidavit saying,
“Freddie Owens is not the person who shot Irene Graves at the Speedway on
November 1, 1997. Freddie was not present when I robbed the Speedway that
day.”
But, neither the South Carolina Supreme Court, the state’s governor, nor
the United States Supreme Court was moved to save Allah from the ultimate
punishment for a crime he may not have even committed.
On Tuesday, Missouri may follow South Carolina and execute Marcellus
Williams, another person who is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. He
would be the third death row inmate executed in the state this year.
As Newsweek notes, “Williams was convicted of murder and sentenced to
death in connection with the 1998 death of social worker and former
journalist Felicia Gayle.” None of the physical evidence collected at the
scene pointed to Williams.
Williams’ conviction, like Allah’s, Newsweek suggests, “turned on the
testimony of two unreliable witnesses who were incentivized by promises of
leniency in their own pending criminal cases and reward money.”
Eventually, even the prosecutor’s office that originally brought the case
against Williams asked the courts to stop the Tuesday’s execution, so far
to no avail.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Texas plans to execute Travis Mullis, making him
the fourth person the state has executed in 2024.
Mullis was found guilty of capital murder in 2011. According to Newsweek,
“He was accused of sexually assaulting his 3-month-old son, Alijah Mullis,
then stomping on his head and choking him, resulting in death.”
No one contends that Mullis is innocent of that horrible crime. But his
case shows the way that America’s death penalty is used against troubled
and vulnerable people.
Mullis has a mental illness resulting from a troubled and abusive
childhood. His attorneys say that he “was in and out of mental health
treatment centers, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar
disorder, and attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder.”
Mullis also was ill-served by the lawyers in his original trial who did “a
poor job of describing the depths of his mental illness.” As a result,
“The jury heard just a fraction of the horrors in Mullis’s life.”
Like with Mullis, if Oklahoma goes ahead with its plan to kill Emmanuel
Littlejohn on Thursday, it will execute someone who was abused throughout
his childhood and whose formative years were marked by “frequent exposure
to violence and drugs.”
Littlejohn was 20 years old when he murdered Kenneth Meers, during a
robbery. His lawyers contend that because of the abuse he suffered, at the
time of the killing, Littlejohn’s brain was “less developed than the
typical 20-year-old’s.”
In addition, they note that “a death sentence in a case with similar facts
hasn’t been handed down in more than 15 years.” Those facts convinced a
majority of the members of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to
recommend that the governor commute Littlejohn’s sentence.
So far, the governor has not said what he will do.
Finally, this week Alan Eugene Miller is scheduled for a second trip to
Alabama’s death chamber. In 2022, the state failed to complete its first
execution attempt using lethal injection when they were unable to access a
vein.
Miller joined a long list of people whose executions by lethal injection
were seriously botched. Now, Alabama plans to kill him using nitrogen
hypoxia.
It would only be the second time that this method has been used anywhere
in the country. The first time was in January of this year when Kenneth
Smith was executed. It did not go well. Witnesses say Smith suffered
greatly.
That gruesome spectacle does not bode well for Miller.
Five executions in seven days will give America a vivid picture of what
happens when the state kills. We should take this opportunity to consider
whether we want to continue using unreliable methods of execution, risking
killing people who just might be innocent, or are the victims of abusive
childhoods or mental illness, or who get a death sentence because of their
race or the race of their victims.
In the end, this week will not just be a bad week for those who wish to
abolish the death penalty. It will be a bad week for everyone who hopes to
make this country a fairer, more just, and more compassionate place.