2022 was year of 'botched execution,' with 6 states carrying out death penalty

Dec. 15 (UPI) -- The Death Penalty Information Center's year-end report on capital punishment in the United States said Friday that 2022 could be called "the year of the botched execution."

Seven of the 20 U.S. executions this year were "visually problematic" as a result of executioner incompetence, failure to follow protocols or defects in the protocols, according to the report.

"After 40 years, the states have proven themselves unable to carry out lethal injections without the risk that it will be botched," the center's Executive Director Robert Dunham said in a statement. "The families of victims and prisoners, other execution witnesses, and corrections personnel should not be subjected to the trauma of an execution gone bad."

Alabama, Arizona and Texas had botched executions when the execution teams could not set IV lines, leading to cancellations or hours-long delays. Executions were also delayed in Alabama, Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee and South Carolina when the execution teams were unable to carry out execution protocols.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown commuted the death sentences of all 17 death row inmates in Oregon on Wednesday, calling the death penalty "immoral."

For the eighth year in a row, the report said, fewer than 50 new death sentences were imposed in the United States while fewer than 30 were carried out.

Those that were carried out were isolated in six states -- Alabama, Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. With five each, Oklahoma and Texas had the most executions.

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Executive Director Kristin Houlé Cuellar said in a statement Texas' death penalty is a "lethal lottery" that does nothing to deter crime.

The randomness of capital punishment, Cuellar said, combined with the flawed cases "should compel Texans to abolish the death penalty altogether."

The coalition said these flaws include false or misleading testimony, faulty forensic evidence and abysmal legal representation at trial.

"The individuals set for execution likely would meet a different fate if they were charged and tried today," Cuellar said. "Yet because of the high hurdles that state and federal courts have erected for review and relief, these older cases from a bygone era of zealous use of the death penalty in Texas remain frozen in time, allowing their executions to proceed despite egregious constitutional violations."

The coalition said new death sentences in Texas have dropped 96% since peaking in 1999 when 48 people were sentenced to death.

DPIC said two more wrongly convicted death row inmates were exonerated in 2022 and public opinion polls this year showed support for the death penalty near historic lows.

According to DPIC, the vast majority of people executed this year in the United States had "significant vulnerabilities" like serious mental illness, brain injury, developmental brain damage or an IQ in the intellectually disabled range, chronic childhood trauma, neglect and/or abuse.