Executions

As in past years, the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple exe­cut­ed in 2024 had at least one of the fol­low­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties: an IQ in the intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled range and/​or brain dam­age; evi­dence of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness; and/​or a his­to­ry of severe child­hood trau­ma or abuse. All but one (96%) of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed this year had records of at least one such vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Six of the 25 (24%) peo­ple exe­cut­ed were 21 or younger at the time of the crime for which they were exe­cut­ed. While the death penal­ty is allowed for defen­dants who were at least age 18 at the time of the crime, a grow­ing body of neu­ro­science research indi­cates that the juve­nile brain is not ful­ly devel­oped until approx­i­mate­ly the mid-20s.

Kenneth Smith, who was exe­cut­ed in Alabama on January 25, was sen­tenced to death under a law that has since been repealed but which has no retroac­tive effect. The jury at his tri­al vot­ed 11 – 1 in favor of a life sen­tence, but the judge over­rode that rec­om­men­da­tion and sen­tenced him to death. Judicial over­ride was repealed in Alabama in 2017. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, Mr. Smith was the twelfth per­son exe­cut­ed in Alabama despite a jury vote for life.

Richard Moore was exe­cut­ed in South Carolina on November 1 for the killing of a store clerk. Mr. Moore had entered the store unarmed but shot James Mahoney, the store clerk, dur­ing a strug­gle that began when Mr. Mahoney point­ed a weapon at Mr. Moore and shot him. Mr. Moore’s clemen­cy peti­tion was sup­port­ed by for­mer pros­e­cu­tor and Director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) Jon Ozmint, who said that ​“objec­tive­ly reviewed, Richard’s crime would nev­er have been con­sid­ered for the death penal­ty in most coun­ties in our state.” Mr. Ozmint also stated that ​“dozens of mur­der­ers cur­rent­ly serv­ing life sen­tences in SCDC had more seri­ous crim­i­nal his­to­ries and com­mit­ted far more heinous killings.” Prosecutors at Mr. Moore’s tri­al also struck all eli­gi­ble Black indi­vid­u­als from the jury that sen­tenced him to death. South Carolina Supreme Court Justice Kay Hearn said, ​“Richard Moore will be put to death for a sen­tence that I do not believe is legal.”

Several pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed in 2024 had sig­nif­i­cant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that was nev­er heard by the juries that sen­tenced them to death. In Texas, Ivan Cantu’s tri­al attor­neys did not seek a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion and there­fore his jury nev­er learned that he had bipo­lar dis­or­der that was com­pound­ed by his his­to­ry of drug abuse. Willie Pye, who was exe­cut­ed in Georgia, grew up des­per­ate­ly poor in a home with no elec­tric­i­ty or water, expe­ri­enced child­hood trau­ma and abuse, and had an IQ of 68, but his jury did not hear any of that evi­dence. Joseph Corcoran in Indiana was allowed to waive his appeals and ​“vol­un­teer” for exe­cu­tion even after three sep­a­rate psy­chol­o­gists diag­nosed him with paranoid schizophrenia.

Loran Cole was exe­cut­ed in Florida despite experiencing ​“hor­rif­ic and trag­ic” abuse at the state-run Dozier School for Boys. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Mr. Cole’s exe­cu­tion war­rant just a month after sign­ing a bill that set aside $20 mil­lion to com­pen­sate chil­dren who were sent to Dozier and anoth­er reform school between 1940 and 1975 and ​“sub­ject­ed to men­tal, phys­i­cal or sex­u­al abuse per­pe­trat­ed by school per­son­nel.” Mr. Cole’s attor­neys alleged that if his ​“jury had known about the severe abuse that hap­pened at Dozier, and Florida’s will­ing­ness to acknowl­edge the severe prob­lems at Dozier to the extent that des­ig­nat­ed vic­tims are enti­tled to repa­ra­tions, there is a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty the new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence would yield a less severe sentence.”

Allegations of dif­fi­cul­ties obtain­ing cer­tain lethal injec­tion drugs led some states to turn to alter­na­tive meth­ods of exe­cu­tion. On January 25, Alabama became the first state to use nitro­gen gas to exe­cute a pris­on­er. Media wit­ness Lee Hedgepeth report­ed, ​“This was the fifth exe­cu­tion that I’ve wit­nessed in Alabama, and I have nev­er seen such a vio­lent reac­tion to an exe­cu­tion.” There was intense media atten­tion from nation­al and inter­na­tion­al media sur­round­ing the use of this untest­ed method and expres­sions of ​“alarm” from inter­na­tion­al human rights organizations. 

South Carolina resumed exe­cu­tions after a 13-year hia­tus when the South Carolina Supreme Court over­turned a low­er court deci­sion and found the state’s process giv­ing pris­on­ers the choice of three exe­cu­tion meth­ods — lethal injec­tion, elec­tro­cu­tion, and fir­ing squad — did not constitute ​“cru­el, cor­po­ral, or unusu­al pun­ish­ment.” In ear­ly 2023, South Carolina passed leg­is­la­tion shield­ing the iden­ti­ties of drug man­u­fac­tur­ers and exe­cu­tion team mem­bers from the pub­lic. After that law passed, the state announced it had obtained lethal injec­tion drugs. John Blume, an attor­ney for Khalil Allah (aka Freddie Owens), who was exe­cut­ed on September 20, said, ​“the lack of trans­paren­cy about the source of the exe­cu­tion drugs, how they were obtained and whether (they) can bring about as pain­less a death as pos­si­ble is still of grave con­cern to the lawyers that rep­re­sent per­sons on death row.” The ACLU unsuc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged anoth­er of South Carolina’s secre­cy poli­cies, ban­ning pris­on­ers from speak­ing to the media.

South Carolina’s law requires pris­on­ers to select their method of exe­cu­tion or accept the default method of elec­tro­cu­tion in the state’s 110-year-old elec­tric chair. Mr. Allah declined to choose, cit­ing his Muslim faith, and autho­rized his attor­ney to choose for him.

Nearly half (48%) of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed in 2024 were peo­ple of col­or. Nine were Black, two were Latino, and one was Native American. The vast major­i­ty of defen­dants (80%) were exe­cut­ed for killing at least one white victim. 

While six peo­ple of col­or were exe­cut­ed for mur­ders of white vic­tims, no white defen­dant was exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of a per­son of col­or. Throughout U.S. his­to­ry, the death penal­ty has been more like­ly to be imposed in cas­es involv­ing white vic­tims, espe­cial­ly if the defen­dant is a per­son of col­or. Since 1976, more than ten times as many Black defen­dants have been exe­cut­ed for mur­ders of white vic­tims than white defen­dants exe­cut­ed for the mur­ders of Black victims.

Both the aver­age age at exe­cu­tion (52 years) and the aver­age time from sen­tenc­ing to exe­cu­tion (22.2 years) remained close to last year’s record highs of 54 years old and 23 years spent on death row. 

The con­di­tions of death row and lengthy soli­tary con­fine­ment con­tribute to declin­ing phys­i­cal and men­tal health for death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers. Travis Mullis (TX), Derrick Dearman (AL), and Joseph Corcoran (IN) all waived appeals and ​“vol­un­teered” for exe­cu­tion. These men had long his­to­ries of men­tal ill­ness which were exac­er­bat­ed by the extreme con­di­tions of iso­la­tion and depri­va­tion on death row. A DPI analy­sis found that the vol­un­teer rate among death row pris­on­ers is more than ten times the sui­cide rate among the gen­er­al pub­lic. The exe­cu­tion of these three vol­un­teers is respon­si­ble for the drop in aver­age age and time on death row, com­pared to last year’s numbers.

Lack of access to health­care also exac­er­bates phys­i­cal health con­di­tions, as evi­denced by Idaho’s failed attempt to exe­cute Thomas Creech in February. His exe­cu­tion was called off after prison offi­cials spent an hour try­ing to set an IV line. Mr. Creech, who is 74 years old, has been diag­nosed with Type 2 dia­betes, hyper­ten­sion, and ede­ma, all of which impact cir­cu­la­tion and vein qual­i­ty. Mr. Creech is the third per­son in the last three years to sur­vive a botched lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion — Alabama tried and failed to exe­cute Alan Miller and Kenneth Smith in 2022, then suf­fo­cat­ed both men using nitro­gen gas this year. On October 15, Idaho announced that it had amend­ed its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and facil­i­ties to allow staff to place a cen­tral intra­venous line, if nec­es­sary, to car­ry out a lethal injec­tion. A new exe­cu­tion date of November 13 was set for Mr. Creech. One week before that date, a fed­er­al dis­trict judge issued a stay of exe­cu­tion to allow for the con­sid­er­a­tion of sev­er­al new legal claims in Mr. Creech’s case. Despite hav­ing no exe­cu­tions in 12 years, the state of Idaho has spent over $300,000 on ren­o­va­tions to its exe­cu­tion prepa­ra­tion room and intends to spend near­ly $1 mil­lion on a sec­ond phase of con­struc­tion, which will include build­ing a facil­i­ty for fir­ing squad executions.

The table below includes infor­ma­tion about the peo­ple exe­cut­ed in 2024 and some of the legal issues in their tri­als and appeals. It is not intend­ed to min­i­mize the seri­ous­ness of any under­ly­ing crimes, but it is in keep­ing with the prin­ci­ple estab­lished in Lockett v. Ohio (1978) that ​“the fun­da­men­tal respect for human­i­ty under­ly­ing the Eighth Amendment [man­dates the]…consideration of the char­ac­ter and record of the indi­vid­ual offend­er and the cir­cum­stances of the par­tic­u­lar offense as a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly indis­pens­able part of the process of inflict­ing the penal­ty of death.”

All but one of the 25 indi­vid­u­als exe­cut­ed this year suf­fered from a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that would make them inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty under cur­rent laws and norms. The indi­vid­u­als exe­cut­ed in 2024 spent on aver­age more than 20 years on death row. On September 26, the United States reached the mile­stone of 1600 exe­cu­tions in the modern era. 

Executions by State and Region

Alabama car­ried out the most exe­cu­tions in 2024, with six, fol­lowed by Texas with five, and Oklahoma and Missouri with four each. This marked the first year in which Alabama exe­cut­ed more peo­ple than any oth­er state. Three states resumed exe­cu­tions after long hia­tus­es. Utah’s first exe­cu­tion in four­teen years occurred when it exe­cut­ed Taberon Dave Honie on August 8. South Carolina car­ried out two exe­cu­tions this year after a thir­­teen-year pause. Indiana’s first exe­cu­tion in fif­teen years occurred on December 18, with Joseph Corcoran. Idaho attempt­ed to resume exe­cu­tions after a twelve-year hia­tus but had to call off the exe­cu­tion of 74-year-old Thomas Creech when exe­cu­tion­ers could not set an IV line after an hour of repeat­ed attempts. A sec­ond exe­cu­tion date for him this year was stayed by a dis­trict court pend­ing the out­come of new legal chal­lenges, which were sub­se­quent­ly dis­missed by the Idaho Supreme Court. In late November, Arizona announced that the state would resume exe­cu­tions in ear­ly 2025. Governor Katie Hobbs had request­ed a review of the state’s exe­cu­tion process soon after tak­ing office in 2023, but abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed the review head­ed by for­mer U.S Magistrate Judge David Duncan, alleg­ing that he had exceed­ed the scope of his man­date. Arizona Department of Corrections Director Ryan Thornell informed Governor Hobbs that the state was now pre­pared to use lethal injec­tion. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes con­firmed in a state­ment on November 26 that her office would be seek­ing a death war­rant for pris­on­er Aaron Gunches in ​“the com­ing weeks.”

Executions con­tin­ued to be geo­graph­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ed in the South, with 19 of this year’s exe­cu­tions (76%) car­ried out in south­ern states. Seven of the nine states that exe­cut­ed peo­ple this year rank among the top ten exe­cut­ing states in the mod­ern era (Indiana and Utah do not).

Notably, only three of the states that exe­cut­ed peo­ple in 2024 also imposed new death sen­tences (Alabama, Florida, and Texas). New death sen­tences are a key indi­ca­tor of the views and atti­tudes of jurors today, as opposed to exe­cu­tions, which reflect the views of jurors at the time of sen­tenc­ing. This dis­tinc­tion has become even more pro­nounced in recent years as exe­cu­tions increas­ing­ly rep­re­sent views that are 20 or 30 years out of date, when sup­port for the death penal­ty was high­er and soci­ety had a dif­fer­ent under­stand­ing of numer­ous fac­tors that influ­ence death sen­tences, includ­ing trau­ma, men­tal ill­ness, and forensic evidence.