Washington (United States) (AFP) – Convicted murderers were put to death by lethal injection in Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Alabama on Thursday, the most executions carried out in the United States on the same day in over 15 years.
Anthony Hines, 66, was executed at a maximum security prison in Nashville for the March 1985 murder of Catherine Jenkins, a 54-year-old motel maid and mother of four, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said. Hines’s execution was the first in the southern state since an attempt to kill another Death Row inmate was aborted in May after medical staff were unable to tap a vein.
Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, was executed in the midwestern state of Oklahoma, also by lethal injection, at the state penitentiary in McAlester for the 2003 murder of his common-law wife, Olimpia Fisher, the state attorney general’s office said. Lastly, Jeremy Williams, 42, was executed in the southern state of Alabama for the 2021 rape and murder of a five-year-old girl, Kamarie Holland.
These executions marked the most in the United States in a single day since 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. With these latest deaths, there have now been 22 executions in the United States this year — 12 in Florida, four in Texas, three in Oklahoma, and one each in Arizona, Tennessee, and Alabama.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place. There were 47 executions in the United States last year, the highest figure since 2009, when 52 inmates were put to death, and President Donald Trump has called for expanding the use of the death penalty.
Thirty-nine of last year’s executions were carried out by lethal injection. Three were by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate. The United Nations has denounced the use of nitrogen gas as a cruel and inhumane method of capital punishment.
© 2024 AFP
