Five states carried out executions in the past week, killing five men

Two men had raised serious innocence claims. Alabama, meanwhile, killed a man whose execution was already botched previously. A bleak week of several executions.

Update, 10:30 p.m. Sept. 26: All five executions took place that were scheduled over the past week, meaning five states all together killed five men since I initially published this.

In one case, Alan Miller reportedly gasped on Thursday night as he suffocated to death in Alabama. It was the second time the state tried to kill him, after having failed to do so once before.

In another, Oklahoma’s Republican governor ignored the recommendation of his state’s parole board that he grant clemency to Emmanuel Littlejohn, instead allowing the state to kill him on Thursday morning.

And, in Missouri, current statewide Republican leaders let an execution proceed that virtually no one thought should take place — including the local prosecutor whose office originally sought the death sentence — when that state killed Marcellus Williams on Tuesday.

With these, 18 executions have been carried out in the United States this year.

The next execution is scheduled for next Tuesday, October 1, when Texas is set to kill Garcia Glen White.

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Original article [with updates, as noted]:

Starting Friday, five states are planning to carry out executions within one week — including of at least one man who is likely innocent.

It is rare to have so many executions scheduled so closely together these days, but it is a stark reminder that the death penalty is not gone — and can reassert itself when the right (or wrong) officials are in the positions to do so.

(It also should serve as a reminder to President Biden that he promised to work to end the federal death penalty. As such, he should commute the sentences of those on the federal death row to life in prison before leaving office to avoid such execution sprees happening again in the federal government as happened during the Trump administration.)

The cases are also reminders of how broken capital punishment is in this country — and how awful it is that we allow the death penalty at all.

In the case that’s gotten the most attention thus far, Missouri — as of now — is scheduled to kill Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams on Tuesday despite the fact that multiple officials, of both parties, have worked to stop his execution because of serious concerns about Williams’s conviction for a 1998 murder that he says he didn’t commit.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey — a Republican who was appointed to the post after being the governor’s general counsel (and having been the general counsel for the Missouri Department of Corrections before that) — is nonetheless forcing the execution forward.

He is doing so over the objection of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell — a Democrat who unsuccessfully asked the trial court to convert Williams’s sentence to life in prison. This itself had been sought as a compromise between the prosecutor and Williams’s lawyers after DNA evidence that both sides had been arguing showed Williams’s innocence was found to have been mishandled at the original trial.

The last time Williams was set to be executed, in 2017, then-Gov. Eric Greitens — a Republican — halted the execution over DNA-related questions, prompting an independent review. After Greitens was forced to resign, his successor, Republican Gov. Mike Parson, shut down the review in 2023 — a move that eventually allowed another execution date to be set.

A clemency request is now pending before Parson, and legal appeals also remain pending before the Missouri Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Even the fact that this execution could go forward — that Williams again has an execution date — is damning of the criminal legal system in this country. If Williams is killed next week, Parson and our legal system will have failed.

[Update, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 24: Missouri has killed Marcellus Williams. More here at Law Dork.]

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Before then, on Friday, South Carolina is aiming to carry out its first execution in more than a dozen years. Freddie Owens is scheduled to die by lethal injection for a 1997 murder, although he has asked Republican Gov. Henry McMaster to grant him clemency.

[Update, 7:15 p.m. Sept. 20: On Friday evening, South Carolina killed Freddie Owens after Gov. Henry McMaster denied his clemency request and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop the execution. Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that she would have stayed the execution.

Owens’s time of death was 6:55 p.m., per the Associated Press.]

There are two executions scheduled for Tuesday.

In addition to Missouri’s scheduled execution of Williams, Texas plans to execute Travis Mullis on Tuesday for the murder of his infant son in 2011. Efforts to stop his execution have focused on a claim that no court has considered the merits of his constitutional challenge to his death sentence, which relates to an argument that insufficient evidence was presented at his trial about the extensive abuse he faced as a child.

[Update, 8:30 p.m. Sept. 24: Texas has killed Travis Mullis.]

There are also two executions scheduled for next Thursday, September 26.

Alabama is seeking to try killing Alan Eugene Miller — again — for the triple murder of his co-workers in 1999. He was one of three executions that Alabama botched back in 2022, which led to a brief moratorium and, more recently, to the state’s adoption of a new execution method: suffocation by nitrogen. The Supreme Court allowed Alabama to proceed using that method in January, and now it is planning to try that method again, on Miller, next week.

[Update, 8:30 p.m. Sept. 26: Alabama has killed Alan Miller. From AL.com:

The gas appeared to start flowing into the mask at 6:16 p.m. His fingers moved slightly on the gurney as his spiritual advisor approached him and touched his leg, praying over Miller.

Miller then took deep breaths and lifted his head off the gurney several times at 6:18 p.m. He struggled against the restraints on the gurney, shaking and trembling for about two minutes.

Then, Miller gasped off and on for about six minutes.

At 6:23 p.m., a correctional officer leaned down and listened to Miller’s breath.

The curtains closed at 6:32 p.m.

Prison officials said Miller’s official time of death was 6:38 p.m.

Thanks to Ivana Hrynkiw for the report.]

Finally, also on Thursday, Oklahoma is scheduled to kill Emmanuel Littlejohn. Whether Littlejohn lives is, in part, in the hands of Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt because the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency for Littlejohn last month on a 3-2 vote. Littlejohn has maintained that he was not the shooter who killed a convenience store’s owner during a robbery in 1992.

[Update, 12:15 p.m. Sept. 26: Oklahoma has killed Emmanuel Littlejohn, after Stitt rejected the pardon board’s clemency recommendation.]

In the first eight months of this year, 13 executions were carried out across the United States.

No executions have taken place in September thus far.

But, by next Friday, five men will have been executed this month if Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas are allowed to proceed with their plans.