Executions and death sentences in the United States remained near 50-year lows in 2022, but “an astonishing 35%” of execution attempts were “visibly problematic,” according to a report released Friday.
The year-end report by Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit focusing on capital punishment issues, found that 18 executions were carried out in the U.S. since January — the fewest in any prepandemic year since 1991.
The report also noted a decline in the handing out of death sentences. To date, 20 death sentences have been issued, with two more sentencing decisions scheduled to be announced in San Bernardino County, California, later on Friday. With the exception of the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the number of sentences will be the lowest imposed in the U.S. in the past half-century.
The ongoing trends point to the “continued durability of the more than the 20-year sustained decline of the death penalty in the United States,” with more and more jurisdictions taking steps to move away from capital punishment, according to the report.
Nearly three-quarters of the country (37 states) have either abolished the death penalty or have not carried out an execution in over a decade. Earlier this week, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown commuted the sentence of all 17 of the state’s inmates on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
For the eighth year in a row, the country has seen fewer than 30 executions and 50 death sentences, while the number of inmates on death row has decreased for the 21st consecutive year.
However, a high number of problematic execution attempts have led the report to refer to 2022 as “the year of the botched execution.”
Executions in three states — Alabama, Arizona and Texas — were forced to either be canceled or delayed after executioners failed to set intravenous lines for lethal injections. The common —yet controversial — method of execution has been used for 40 years in the U.S.
Seven of the 20 execution attempts were “botched” as a result of incompetence and/or faulty protocols. One such case was the July execution of Joe James in Alabama, which took approximately three hours to get underway, sparking national outrage.
“After 40 years, the states have proven themselves unable to carry out lethal injections without the risk that it will be botched,” Robert Dunham, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “The families of victims and prisoners, other executions witnesses, and correction personnel should not be subjected to the trauma of an execution gone bad.”
Executions in 2022 were concentrated in a handful of states. Oklahoma and Texas carried out more than half (56%) of the country’s total, with five executions each — a reflection of a historical trend. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, those two states performed about 45% of all executions in the U.S.
The other states where inmates were executed in 2020 were Arizona (three); Arizona and Missouri (two each); and Mississippi (one).
Public support for capital punishment has historically increased alongside the perception of higher crime. However, despite Gallup’s 2022 Crime Survey finding the largest increase in 50 years of people who believe crime has gone up, support for the death penalty held steady at 55% in 2022. The figure is in line with polls conducted over the past six years.
About four in 10 respondents (42%) said they oppose the death penalty.
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