It’s been a busy summer for executions in the U.S., with seven men having been executed since June. Another five are set to be put to death during a week-long period in September. With ,590 executions in the past five decades, the U.S. is an outlier among developed nations when it comes to the ultimate punishment, with more than 70% of nations globally having banned the practice, says the Death Penalty Information Center. In 2020, only five other countries executed more of its citizens than did the U.S.: China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Globally in 2023, the number of people put to death jumped by 30%, making it the deadliest year in a decade, says Amnesty International. With the U.S. on pace to execute at least 19 prisoners this year, and more expected to be scheduled, USA Today looked at the states that have executed the most inmates, which states have banned the practice, and how many innocent people have been put to death in the process.
Twenty-one states have the death penalty. Six states still consider the death penalty legal but have put executions on hold for various reasons, like the shaky reliability of execution drugs The other 23 states do not have the death penalty. The Polunsky Unit, where death row inmates are held in Texas, executes more inmates than any other state in the nation, by far. The Lone Star state has put 589 inmates to death since 1982, most recently the Aug. 7 execution of Arthur Lee Burton for murdering a mother of three. Texas executed eight inmates last year and three so far this year, with at least two more men set to be put to death in the state by the end of 2024. So far this year, there have been 13 executions, three each in Alabama and Texas, two each in Oklahoma and Missouri, and one each in Utah, Florida and Georgia. There are seven more currently scheduled through the end of the year. It's impossible to say how many innocent people have been executed but dozens of inmates have been wrongfully sentenced to death in the past five decades. Some have spent decades of their lives in prison before being exonerated. On June 19 in Texas, the Court of Criminal Appeals exonerated Kerry Max Cook after he spent nearly 20 years on death row for murder.
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