From: bigmongo1963@biteme.com   
      
   https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/marcellus-wiliams-supreme-   
   court-execution-spree.html   
      
   We’re Witnessing the Worst Execution Spree in Three Decades   
      
   This week is shaping up to be a very bad one for death penalty opponents   
   in the United States. If all goes according to plan, states will put five   
   people to death in a one-week span ending Thursday. That is an unusual,   
   though not unprecedented, number of executions in such a short period of   
   time.   
      
   To understand just how unusual it is, consider that in 2023, the total   
   number of executions for the entire year was 24, less than one execution   
   every other week. In 2022, 18 people were put to death, for a rate of   
   roughly one execution every third week.   
      
   Indeed, one would have to go back almost three decades, to 1997, to find a   
   parallel to what may unfold this week. During a seven-day period in May   
   that year, Texas executed five people.   
      
   But unlike 1997, this week’s executions will occur in five different   
   states.   
      
   It all started on Friday when South Carolina executed Khalil Allah,   
   formerly known as Freddie Owens, its first execution since 2011. The   
   others are planned for Tuesday and Thursday in Texas, Missouri, Alabama,   
   and Oklahoma, all of which regularly carry out executions.   
      
   It is just a coincidence that all these states are moving in lockstep.   
   Coincidence or not, a close look at each of the cases in which someone   
   will be executed this week highlights not just the kind of horrible crimes   
   that can land someone on death row but also many of the death penalty’s   
   crippling problems.   
      
   This week’s executions include two cases in which there are substantial   
   doubts about whether the person being executed is actually innocent. Two   
   others illustrate the fact that the death penalty is often used against   
   people who are poor, vulnerable, abused, and in many ways broken, not   
   against the worst criminals. The fifth highlights America’s futile search   
   for a method of execution that will be safe, reliable, and humane.   
      
   And the fact that three of the five people who will be executed this week   
   are Black only underlines the continuing salience of race in determining   
   who gets sentenced to death and executed.   
      
   All told, this week’s execution spree should unsettle all Americans,   
   whether or not they support the death penalty. It will offer further   
   reasons for why capital punishment should be abolished everywhere in this   
   country.   
      
   To see why, let’s start with last Friday’s execution of Khalil Allah. He   
   was convicted of the 1997 murder of Irene Grainger Graves, a single mother   
   of three who worked as a convenience store clerk.   
      
   No physical evidence connected Allah to the crime. The key evidence   
   against him was testimony from his co-defendant, Steven Golden, who said   
   Allah shot Graves.   
      
   Golden did so after reaching a deal with prosecutors that he would not be   
   given a death sentence in return for his testimony. Allah maintained his   
   innocence from the time he was arrested to the day he died.   
      
   And just before South Carolina put him to death, new evidence came to   
   light suggesting that what he had been saying for years was true. Last   
   Wednesday, Golden recanted his testimony and signed an affidavit saying,   
   “Freddie Owens is not the person who shot Irene Graves at the Speedway on   
   November 1, 1997. Freddie was not present when I robbed the Speedway that   
   day.”   
      
   But, neither the South Carolina Supreme Court, the state’s governor, nor   
   the United States Supreme Court was moved to save Allah from the ultimate   
   punishment for a crime he may not have even committed.   
      
   On Tuesday, Missouri may follow South Carolina and execute Marcellus   
   Williams, another person who is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. He   
   would be the third death row inmate executed in the state this year.   
      
   As Newsweek notes, “Williams was convicted of murder and sentenced to   
   death in connection with the 1998 death of social worker and former   
   journalist Felicia Gayle.” None of the physical evidence collected at the   
   scene pointed to Williams.   
      
   Williams’ conviction, like Allah’s, Newsweek suggests, “turned on the   
   testimony of two unreliable witnesses who were incentivized by promises of   
   leniency in their own pending criminal cases and reward money.”   
      
   Eventually, even the prosecutor’s office that originally brought the case   
   against Williams asked the courts to stop the Tuesday’s execution, so far   
   to no avail.   
      
   Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Texas plans to execute Travis Mullis, making him   
   the fourth person the state has executed in 2024.   
      
   Mullis was found guilty of capital murder in 2011. According to Newsweek,   
   “He was accused of sexually assaulting his 3-month-old son, Alijah Mullis,   
   then stomping on his head and choking him, resulting in death.”   
      
   No one contends that Mullis is innocent of that horrible crime. But his   
   case shows the way that America’s death penalty is used against troubled   
   and vulnerable people.   
      
   Mullis has a mental illness resulting from a troubled and abusive   
   childhood. His attorneys say that he “was in and out of mental health   
   treatment centers, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar   
   disorder, and attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder.”   
      
   Mullis also was ill-served by the lawyers in his original trial who did “a   
   poor job of describing the depths of his mental illness.” As a result,   
   “The jury heard just a fraction of the horrors in Mullis’s life.”   
      
   Like with Mullis, if Oklahoma goes ahead with its plan to kill Emmanuel   
   Littlejohn on Thursday, it will execute someone who was abused throughout   
   his childhood and whose formative years were marked by “frequent exposure   
   to violence and drugs.”   
      
   Littlejohn was 20 years old when he murdered Kenneth Meers, during a   
   robbery. His lawyers contend that because of the abuse he suffered, at the   
   time of the killing, Littlejohn’s brain was “less developed than the   
   typical 20-year-old’s.”   
      
   In addition, they note that “a death sentence in a case with similar facts   
   hasn’t been handed down in more than 15 years.” Those facts convinced a   
   majority of the members of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to   
   recommend that the governor commute Littlejohn’s sentence.   
      
   So far, the governor has not said what he will do.   
      
   Finally, this week Alan Eugene Miller is scheduled for a second trip to   
   Alabama’s death chamber. In 2022, the state failed to complete its first   
   execution attempt using lethal injection when they were unable to access a   
   vein.   
      
   Miller joined a long list of people whose executions by lethal injection   
   were seriously botched. Now, Alabama plans to kill him using nitrogen   
   hypoxia.   
      
      
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