US executions decline in 2022 but many were ‘botched’
- Annual report on capital punishment in the United States labels 2022 ‘year of the botched execution’
- Seven of 20 execution attempts were visibly problematic or took an inordinate amount of time, report says
Public support and use of the death penalty in 2022 continued its more than two-decade decline in the United States, and many of the executions that were carried out during the year were “botched” or highly problematic, an annual report on capital punishment says.
There were 18 executions in the US in 2022, the fewest in any pre-pandemic year since 1991. There were 11 executions last year. Outside of the pandemic years, the 20 death sentences handed out in 2022 were the fewest in any year in the US in a half-century, according to the report by the Washington DC-based Death Penalty Information Center.
“All the indicators point to the continuing decline in capital punishment and the movement away from the death penalty is durable,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the non-profit, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticised the way states carry out executions.
In the US, 37 states have abolished the death penalty or not carried out an execution in more than a decade.
On Tuesday, Oregon Governor Kate Brown commuted the sentences of all 17 of the state’s death row inmates to life in prison without parole.
Oregon last executed a prisoner in 1997. There have been no federal executions since January 2021 following a historic use of capital punishment by the Trump administration. In July 2021, the Justice Department imposed a moratorium on federal executions.