Eight states have killed 20 people so far this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/outcomes-of-death-warrants-in-2024 .* Seven more people are scheduled to be killed before year-end, and if carried out, 2024 will exceed the number killed last year. It has been a fast and furious killing spree. Five people were killed in one week, a number the country hasn’t seen since July 2003.
“Last week’s execution spree reminds us, we have a long way to go to stanch the insidious disease infecting our society that the death penalty represents,” Doug Magee and Austin Sarat write in Slate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/10/death-penalty-opponents-failure-execution-spree-2024.html.
Eleven executions are scheduled for next year.
*All statistics are courtesy of the Death Penalty Information Center.
