2022 sets record for botched executions: study
(An activist holds roses and a sign at a death penalty protest on MLK Day 2022. Maria Oswalt/UNSPLASH)
Last week, The Blueprint reported on the nearly 1,100 Americans killed by police in 2022.
That number, however, does not include those killed by the state, condemned to death by a criminal justice system responsible for a record number of botched executions.
While the death penalty might seem like a thing of the past, more than half of the states in America still allow it in the present day – 27 to be exact.
2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the introduction of lethal injection as a method of executing criminals convicted and sentenced to death row.
But even though 1,558 Americans have been executed over the past five decades, this year saw an astonishing 35 per cent of execution attempts botched by officials.
Seven of the 20 execution attempts over the past year were labelled as “visibly problematic,” which ranges from executioner incompetence, failures to follow protocols, or defects in the protocols themselves, according to a December report from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
Botched executions in Alabama, Arizona and Texas saw officials unable to set IV lines, resulting in delays and cancellations.
One of the most egregious incidents occurred on July 28 in Alabama. Corrections personnel spent three hours trying to set an IV line on a prisoner set to die, becoming the longest botched lethal injection execution in the history of the United States.
“After 40 years, the states have proven themselves unable to carry out lethal injections without the risk that it will be botched,” said DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham in a news release. “The families of victims and prisoners, other execution witnesses, and corrections personnel should not be subjected to the trauma of an execution gone bad.”
The good news is that 2022 marked the eighth consecutive year that fewer than 50 new death sentences were imposed upon convicted individuals, as well as fewer than 30 executions carried out during the same time period.
The decrease in executions makes the number of botched execution attempts all the more concerning.
America’s criminal justice system by the numbers
Data released this month from the Prison Policy Institute shows the U.S. remains home to:
1,566 state prisons
102 federal prisons
2,850 local jails
1,510 juvenile correctional facilities
186 immigration detention facilities
82 Indian country jails
That doesn’t include military prisons, state psychiatric hospitals, civil commitment centers, or prisons in the U.S. territories.
But the 1.9 million people behind bars in the United States today make up a fraction of those who have been directly impacted by mass incarceration.
The Prison Policy Institute says there are 4.9 million Americans who were formerly incarcerated in state or federal prison, while 19 million people have been convicted of a felony.
At least 79 million Americans have a criminal record, and an astonishing 113 million adults in the United States have an immediate family member who has been to prison or jail.
And the effects of mass incarceration don’t stop there. Data shows most people who are incarcerated in the United States face “collateral consequences” even after they have served their time. These consequences range from restrictions on voting and housing, to education and employment.
The death penalty is ‘both dysfunctional and immoral’: Oregon Governor
Ahead of the holiday season, Oregon Governor Kate Brown commuted the death sentences of 17 prisoners on death row, resentencing the individuals to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
"I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people—even if a terrible crime placed them in prison," Brown said in a statement.
Oregon has long had a moratorium on executions, something Brown has continued since she became governor in 2015.
While Brown called the death penalty "both dysfunctional and immoral," she hasn’t outright banned state executions.
What sets these commutations apart from past ones, Brown said, is that they haven’t been granted to those who’ve "demonstrated extraordinary growth and rehabilitation." Instead, it’s an acknowledgement of the failure of the death penalty.
"It reflects the recognition that the death penalty is immoral. It is an irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction; is wasteful of taxpayer dollars; does not make communities safer; and cannot be and never has been administered fairly and equitably," Brown added.
Brown also spoke of the pain and uncertainty experienced by victims who are forced to wait for decades while individuals sit on death row without resolution, particularly in states with moratoriums on executions.
"My hope is that this commutation will bring us a significant step closer to finality in these cases," Brown said.
Abolishing the death penalty
The death penalty remains legal in the majority of American states. Thirty-seven of them have either abolished the death penalty or have not carried out an execution in over a decade.
While the number of executions was up from the 2021 record low of 16, the 18 executions mark the fewest imposed state-sanctioned deaths in the last 50 years. Only six states — Alabama, Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas — were responsible for the executions carried out this year, with Oklahoma and Texas making up 10 of the 18 killings.
Of the 12 states to impose new death sentences in 2022, Oklahoma is set to undergo 25 executions in the next two years.
Of the 18 people executed this year, eight of them were people of color. Five were Black, one was Asian, one Native American, and one Latino.
Kevin Johnson of Missouri was executed despite a request to vacate his sentence due to racial bias and the intentional exclusion of Black members on the jury.
In addition to the deaths, two former death row prisoners were exonerated in 2022, including the third woman sentenced to death from a wrongful conviction in U.S. history.
Since 1972, 190 people have been exonerated from death row. Of the 9,700 death sentences imposed from 1972 to Jan. 1, 2021, nearly 50 per cent were reversed by a judge. Only one in six executions was actually completed.