HOUSTON — Public support and use of the death penalty in 2022 continued its more than two-decade decline in the U.S., 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 U.S. in 2022, the fewest in any pre-pandemic year since 1991. There were 11 executions in 2021.
Outside of the pandemic years, the 20 death sentences handed out in 2022 were the fewest in any year in the U.S. in 50 years, according to the report by the Washington, D.C.-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 nonprofit, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.
In the U.S., 37 states have abolished the death penalty or not carried out an execution in more than a decade. On Tuesday, Oregon Gov. 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.
The report called 2022 the “Year of the Botched Execution,” as seven of the 20 execution attempts in the U.S. were visibly problematic or took an inordinate amount of time. That prompted some states to put them on hold so processes and protocols could be reviewed.
Significant problems were reported with all three of Arizona’s executions as corrections officers struggled to find suitable veins for IV lines to deliver the lethal injection.
In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey ordered a “top-to-bottom” review of the state’s capital punishment system last month after three failed lethal injections, including two in 2022 involving problems with intravenous lines used to administer the drugs.
Other concerns with executions included a South Carolina judge’s ruling in September that called unconstitutional the state’s newly created execution firing squad, as well as its use of the electric chair. The state’s Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the issue next month.
