The United States carried out 18 executions in 2022, the fewest in any pre-pandemic year since 1991, as the country continues to see a decline in public support for the death penalty year to year.
For the eighth year in a row, fewer than 50 death sentences were imposed in the U.S., and less than 30 were carried out. In 2022, six states carried out executions and 12 imposed death sentences. Twenty executions were attempted and 18 were successful.
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The Death Penalty Information Center christened 2022 as the “year of the botched execution,” stating that seven of the 20 execution attempts were “visibly problematic” due to executioner incompetence or protocol failures, per the center’s annual report.
“After 40 years, the states have proven themselves unable to carry out lethal injections without the risk that it will be botched,” Executive Director Robert Dunham said. “The families of victims and prisoners, other execution witnesses, and corrections personnel should not be subjected to the trauma of an execution gone bad.”
On July 28, executioners in Alabama took three hours to set an IV line in Joe James Jr.’s arm before putting him to death, making it the longest botched lethal injection in U.S. history. Executions in Alabama, Tennessee, Idaho, and South Carolina were put on hold after the states were unable to follow execution protocols. An Oklahoma man’s execution did not occur after the state had failed to make arrangements for his transfer prior to his scheduled death sentence.
Overall, Oklahoma and Texas made up a majority of the death penalties, with both states each carrying out five executions. The death penalty occurred in those two states, as well as Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, and Missouri.
The center found that the vast majority of those executed in 2022 were individuals with “significant vulnerabilities.” Eight had several mental illnesses, five had brain injuries, developmental brain damage, or an IQ in the intellectually disabled range, and 12 had chronic childhood neglect, trauma, and/or abuse.
Three of the 18 prisoners executed were killed for crimes they committed in their teenage years, and at least four were military veterans. Today, in most jurisdictions, the cases would not have been capitally prosecuted, the center reported.
Support for the death penalty continues to dwindle year to year. The Gallup Poll’s 2022 Crime Survey found that 42% of respondents oppose the death penalty, one percentage point below 2021’s 50-year high.
However, against the backdrop of the Parkland school shooting trial, support for capital punishment remained at 55%, one percentage point higher than 2021’s record low of 54%. Several parents of the Parkland victims spoke out after the jury ruled the shooter would not receive the death penalty, believing that the jury and criminal justice system as a whole had failed them.
As of April 1, 2,414 inmates were on death row, 60 less than in 2021 at that time. Since 1872, 190 people have been exonerated from death row. This year, several governors either stayed executions or commuted sentences rather than carry out the death penalty, whether it was for morality reasons or a review of the execution process.
Of the 27 states that continue to legally allow the death penalty, Oregon, California, and Pennsylvania currently have a governor-imposed moratorium. On Wednesday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) commuted the sentences of 17 death row inmates as one of her final acts in office. Her successor has verbally committed to continuing the moratorium when she takes office in January.
The American Civil Liberties Union celebrated Brown’s decision in a statement, stating that she joined a long line of governors offering to “give people a second chance.”
“Executives literally have power over redemption for those they govern,” said Cynthia W. Roseberry, acting director of ACLU’s Justice Division. “… It is a powerful illustration of the use of categorical clemency to right previously irreversible errors of the criminal legal system.”
The union runs the Capital Punishment Project, an effort to repeal the death penalty in all 50 states. Director Cassandra Stubbs wrote in a statement that the death penalty in America is a “well-documented failure.”
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“It is arbitrary in its application, it is racist, it is costly, it doesn’t have a deterrent effect, it is cruel, it cannot protect innocent people from execution, and it is applied unjustly to people with serious mental illness and intellectual disabilities,” Stubbs wrote. “It is a violation of the Constitution and a moral stain on our country.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the ACLU for comment on the annual report.
