More than ever
US states execute five people in one week
24.09.2024, 10:51 a.m.
It is a lot even by US standards: Within a few days, five people died in executions in the USA. This brings the number of executions since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1976 to 1,600. Amnesty International calls the latest figures “disheartening”.
Executions were scheduled in five US states within a period of just one week. The high number is a counter-trend to the years-long decline in the number of death penalty executions in the USA.
If the executions in Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas go ahead as planned, it would be the first time in more than 20 years – since July 2003 – that five death sentences have been carried out within seven days, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The nonprofit organization does not take a general stance on the death penalty, but has criticized the way it is applied in some states.
The first execution has already taken place – on Friday in South Carolina. If the other four follow this week, the number of executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 would reach 1,600, said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “Two on a single day is unusual, and four on two days in the same week is also very unusual,” she said.
Amnesty International expressed sharp criticism. “The timetable for so many executions is in itself disheartening. But even more worrying are the efforts made by each state to push ahead with the execution of people without regard for the cost, giving priority to its death machines over steps to abolish them.”
The human rights organization called the death penalty the “ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment” and a violation of the right to life. “The death penalty is too flawed to fix. All executions, regardless of the method, are a violation of human rights and states should work to abolish the death penalty instead of using resources to invent and implement cruel methods of killing people,” it said.