Between January and the end of June 2011, there were 25 exe­cu­tions in 9 states. During the same time peri­od last year, there were 29 exe­cu­tions. Of the exe­cu­tions this year, 8 were car­ried out using the drug sodi­um thiopen­tal, while 17 involved a new drug, pen­to­bar­bi­tal. Earlier in 2011, Hospira Inc., the sole U.S. man­u­fac­tur­er of sodi­um thiopen­tal, announced that it would no longer man­u­fac­ture the drug, forc­ing states to search for for­eign sources or alter­na­tive drugs for their lethal injec­tions. Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina have used pen­to­bar­bi­tal instead of sodi­um thiopen­tal in their exe­cu­tions in 2011. Ohio is the only one of those 7 states to use pen­to­bar­bi­tal as the sole drug in its lethal-injec­tion process. In the first half of 2011, 18 clemen­cies have been grant­ed, com­mut­ing the defen­dan­t’s death sen­tence to life with­out parole. Fifteen of the com­mu­ta­tions were in Illinois, where Governor Pat Quinn signed a bill repeal­ing the state’s death penal­ty. The repeal goes into effect today, Juy 1. Seventy-six per­cent (76%) of the cas­es result­ing in exe­cu­tions so far this year involved the mur­der of at least 1 white vic­tim, even though gen­er­al­ly whites are vic­tims of mur­der less than 50% of the time.

(DPIC post­ed, July 1, 2011). For more infor­ma­tion about the lethal injec­tion con­tro­ver­sy, vis­it our page on Lethal Injection. For a state-by-state list­ing of which drugs are used and where states obtained their lethal injec­tion drugs, see our State-by-state lethal injec­tion page. You can also vis­it our 2011 Execution List for infor­ma­tion on the kind of lethal injec­tion used in each of this year’s exe­cu­tions. See also Executions and Clemencies.

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