Spate of high-profile US death penalty cases fuels public outrage and anger | Capital punishment

A spate of high-profile death penalty cases in 2024 have prompted an unprecedented outburst of public anger and frustration, as several condemned prisoners with credible claims of innocence have fought their pending executions in the court of public opinion.

Profound qualms about the reliability of death sentences have been raised over a number of disturbing cases this year. They include that of Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, killed by Missouri through lethal injection in September despite critical doubts around the strength of his conviction and a massive public protest culminating in a petition signed by 1.5 million people.

Other searing cases included the Texas prisoner currently fighting execution for a conviction based on “shaken baby syndrome”, which many experts now reject as junk science, and Richard Glossip, whose 27-year struggle to prove his innocence has galvanized even pro-death penalty Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma to rally to his side.

The roiling of public outrage over condemned prisoners’ claims of innocence, and the protests that have erupted over the fairness of US capital punishment, are some of the headlines of the 2024 annual review of the practice by the authoritative Death Penalty Information Center (DPI). The report was released just hours before the final execution of the year was slated to be carried out in Oklahoma, where Kevin Ray Underwood died by lethal injection on Thursday morning.

The DPI review records that for the 10th consecutive year there were fewer than 30 executions in the US. The number of new death sentences meted out also remained at historically low levels, at 26.

These headline figures suggest the ongoing gradual withering away of the death penalty in the US. But counter indicators also suggest a new relentless determination on the part of the rump of largely southern states that still put people to death that is sparking intense public unease.

“In 2024, we saw people with credible evidence of innocence set for execution, followed by extraordinary levels of public frustration and outrage,” said Robin Maher, DPI’s director.

“Several high-profile cases fueled new concerns about whether the death penalty can be used fairly and accurately.”

The 25 executions carried out this year amply display the inequities of the ultimate punishment. Just four states – Alabama, Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma – were responsible for 76% of the executions.

The DPI review notes wryly that for Americans living in 41 of the 50 states “the death penalty may not even register as a concern”. That itself is problematic, as it means that on the national political stage the devastating problems associated with capital punishment barely get an airing – the death penalty featured only slightly in the 2024 presidential election.

Nine states carried out executions this year, up from only five states in 2023.

The death penalty may be withering, but it is also simultaneously experiencing a renaissance. Three states – Utah, South Carolina and Indiana – conducted their first judicial killings this year after a hiatus of more than a decade.

The glaring inequities that have long been associated with the practice have been on full display this year. Nearly half of those killed were people of color, while the vast majority were executed for murdering at least one white victim.

All but one of the 24 put to death demonstrated classic vulnerabilities, including intellectual disability or brain damage, serious mental illness, and a history of severe childhood trauma or abuse.

States also showed relentless determination to skirt around fundamental flaws in their practice of the death penalty through experimentation. Alabama became the first state in the country to use nitrogen as an execution method, suffocating Kenneth Smith with the gas.

The state had tried to kill Smith before, subjecting him to an hours-long failed lethal injection procedure that experts likened to torture.

“Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before,” the supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in a scathing dissent.

But it was fears that potentially innocent people were heading to the death chamber that caused most foment this year.

“Marcellus Williams should be alive today,” said Wesley Bell, the prosecuting attorney in St Louis county shortly after Williams was put to death in Missouri for the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle.

Williams was executed despite there being no forensic evidence linking him to the crime, while substantial evidence was uncovered pointing to prosecutorial misconduct.

In Texas, deep concern about the pending execution of Robert Roberson for killing his two-year-old daughter Nikki under the disputed theory of “shaken baby syndrome” led to unprecedented scenes in which state lawmakers, including several prominent Republicans, tried to stop the execution. The Texas supreme court issued a stay just 90 minutes before Roberson was set to die by lethal injection after the lawmakers issued a subpoena for his testimony.

The lawmakers’ exceptional efforts to spare Roberson’s life appear to be temporary, however. The state supreme court ruled last month that the subpoena was invalid, allowing a new execution date to be set.

In Oklahoma, doubts around the death sentence of Glossip also provoked intense soul-searching. Glossip was convicted of the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a motel in Oklahoma City which Glossip managed.

Glossip was convicted on the basis of the testimony of a co-worker who later admitted he was the actual murderer. It was also recently revealed that prosecutors destroyed evidence before trial that could have cleared Glossip.

So devastating were the doubts surrounding the case that Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, admitted that unconstitutional errors had occurred and called for a new trial for Glossip. The case is currently being considered by the US supreme court.