America's Historically Low Rate Of Executions May Be Here To Stay

     The United States is the only nation in the Americas that has conducted an execution in the last 15 years. However, with the majority of states now having abolished, placed a moratorium on, or simply not conducted executions in recent years, the number has fallen drastically, from 36 in 2017 to 22 in 2019 to 17 in 2020 and 11 in 2021. This has mostly been a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this included the only two years in decades in which the federal government has executed people: the federal government executed 13 people out of the 28 put to death during those two years. 

     In 2022, 14 people are currently scheduled to be executed. Some of the states most eager to execute people are seeing legal setbacks. Ohio has announced it will not be able to execute people until at least 2024 because of trouble getting the drugs used in lethal injection. Louisiana and Kentucky have not executed people in over a dozen years a piece, and, while Kentucky has no plans on executing anyone anytime soon, Louisiana's plans have been set back by legal challenges to the state's death row procedure that will likely last several more years.

     There's another element here that is drastically reducing the number of executions. With such a small number planned, NGOs are able to focus on preventing executions more specifically. Take the case of Pervis Payne, a man with severe developmental disabilities who was ruled to be ineligible for the death penalty by Tennessee's Supreme Court, or Julius Jones, another black man scheduled to die in Oklahoma who had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment after strong evidence emerged suggesting he was innocent.

     With the moratorium on the federal death penalty reinstated, COVID continuing to effect prison protocol, drawn-out legal battles over America's primary method of execution, and the increased prominence of non-profit legal service groups in discussions surrounding the death penalty, it appears that America's low rate of executions, less than 20 a year, may be here to stay.

     That's incredible progress, but it's not good enough. Congress should vote on the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act in July, and states where there is strong support for ending the death penalty like California, Oregon, and Nevada need to abolish it immediately. This would raise the number of states and territories that have abolished the death penalty to 30, representing nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population.