According to a report released on Friday by a non-profit capital punishment research group, the number of botched executions in the United States reached a record high in 2022, even though the overall number of inmates executed remained near a five-decade low.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center’s annual report, seven of the 20 executions attempted this year were “visibly problematic,” including one lethal injection attempt that resulted in an unprecedented three-hour struggle to insert an intravenous (IV) line into an Alabama man.

Two of this year’s 20 execution attempts – both lethal injections in Alabama – were called off midway after officials attempted and failed to establish IV lines, prompting the state’s Republican governor to call for a “top-to-bottom” review of the execution process.

Other scheduled executions in Tennessee, Idaho, and South Carolina were canceled after state officials discovered flaws in execution preparation or protocol, according to the report.

Except for the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, when many states paused or slowed executions, the 18 executions in 2022 were the fewest in three decades. Outside of the pandemic years, the 22 death sentences issued in 2022 were the fewest in any previous year.

Because 37 U.S. states have abolished the death penalty or have not executed anyone in more than a decade, this year’s executions were concentrated in a few states, with more than half taking place in Oklahoma and Texas.

Oregon’s Democratic governor commuted the death sentences of the state’s 17 death-row inmates on Tuesday, sending them to life in prison with no chance of parole, and directed officials to dismantle the state’s execution chamber.

In the United States, public support for executing prisoners had hovered this year just one percentage point above a five-decade low reached in 2021, when 54% of respondents said they supported capital punishment in a Gallup poll.

In 2022, a Rasmussen Reports poll found even lower support for the death penalty, with only 46% of respondents supporting it.

Mississippi executes man for rape, murder of a 16-year-old girl

Meanwhile, a man who raped and killed a 16-year-old girl in Mississippi was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, becoming the state’s second execution in ten years.

Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton pronounced Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., 58, dead at 6:12 p.m. He’d been on death row since pleading guilty to capital murder, rape, and four counts of sexual battery against Leesa Marie Gray in 2001. In June 2000, she was stranded with a flat tire when Loden forced her into his van.

Wanda Farris, Gray’s mother, was present at the execution at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of the state capital, Jackson. The most recent execution in Mississippi occurred in November 2021.

A federal judge declined to stay Loden’s execution earlier this month, despite a pending lawsuit by him and four other Mississippi death row inmates challenging the state’s use of three drugs for lethal injections, which they claim is inhumane.

Loden wore a red prison jumpsuit and was covered by a white sheet during the execution. Brown leather straps restrained him on a gurney.

Loden expressed “deep remorse” before the injection began.

“I’ve tried to do a good deed every single day for the past 20 years to make up for the life I took from this world,” Loden said. “I know these are just words, and they won’t undo the harm I’ve done. If nothing else comes from today, I hope it brings you peace and closure.”

According to officials, his final words were “I love you” in Japanese.

Grey had spent the summer before her senior year of high school working as a waitress at her uncle’s restaurant in northeast Mississippi. She left work after dark on June 22, 2000, and got a flat tire.

Loden, a Marine Corps recruiter with relatives in the area, pulled over around 10:45 p.m. and began discussing the flat with her. “Don’t be concerned. I’m in the Marine Corps. “This is something we do,” he explained.

Loden told investigators that after Gray allegedly said she would never want to be a Marine, he became enraged and ordered her into his van. He told investigators that he sexually assaulted her for four hours before strangling and suffocating her.

According to court records, “Loden was discovered lying by the side of a road with the words ‘I’m sorry’ carved into his chest and apparent self-inflicted lacerations on his wrists” the following afternoon.

Farris described her daughter as a “happy-go-lucky, always smiling” adolescent with aspirations of becoming an elementary school teacher.

“She wasn’t perfect, mind you,” Farris admitted. “However, she worked hard to do the right thing.”

Farris refused to speak to reporters after the execution.

A week earlier, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate granted the execution, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision seven years ago that upheld a three-drug lethal injection protocol in Oklahoma.

After a string of failed lethal injections, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey called for a moratorium on executions and a “top-to-bottom” review of the state’s capital punishment system in November.

Mississippi conducts “mock executions and drills” every month to avoid a botched execution, according to Jeworski Mallett, deputy commissioner of institutions for the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

In court papers filed in July 2021, the Department of Corrections revealed that it had acquired three drugs for its lethal injection protocol: midazolam, a sedative; vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Only Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Tennessee have used a three-drug protocol since 2019, according to Jim Craig, a MacArthur Center attorney, who spoke at a November court hearing.

Craig stated that in 2008, most death-penalty states and the federal government used a three-drug protocol, but the federal government and most of those states have since switched to a single drug.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the death penalty is used in 27 states. Mississippi has 36 inmates on death row.

Death Penalty Action, a group opposed to the death penalty, held a press conference in front of the state capitol on Tuesday.

“Something snapped in him for him to commit such a horrific crime,” said Mitzi Magleby, a spokesperson for the Mississippi chapter of Ignite Justice, a criminal justice reform advocacy organization. “Mr. Loden was immediately repentant. Isn’t there room for grace and mercy in this situation?”

Loden hoped his execution would be the country’s last, according to his attorney, Mark McDonald, in a statement issued after the execution.

At a Wednesday news conference, Burl Cain, the Mississippi Department of Corrections commissioner, stated that Loden cooperated with officials.

“He expressed his grief. “But he was upbeat and ate well,” Cain said. For his last meal, he had two bone-in-fried pork chops, sweet potatoes, and peach cobbler with ice cream.

The victim’s mother, Farris, told The Associated Press on Friday that she had forgiven Loden years ago but did not believe his apology.

“I don’t want to see anyone die,” Farris explained. “However, I believe in the death penalty… I believe in justice.”

Source: Reuters, VOR News

Post Disclaimer

The above article is sponsored content any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily reflect the views of VORNews. For more information on our sponsored content policy click here.