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Execution chambers starting to heat up for the dog days of summer

By Douglas A. Berman

The nation's execution chambers were pretty quiet through the month of June: after a single execution in Ohio and another in Texas at the very start of the month, there was only one more execution (in Alabama) before the calender turned to July.  This past Thursday, however, Oklahoma executed a double murderer (details here from the AP), and five more executions are on tap for the next two weeks (schedule here via DPIC). If all five of the executions scheduled for the next two weeks take place, there will have already been more executions in 2009 than took place in all of 2008.  That notable fact is mostly the result of the Baze litigation, which blocked all executions through May of 2008.  Nevertheless, if the pace of roughly six executions per month continues through the end of 2009, it is possible that the first year of the Obama Administration could end up having more executions nationwide than did any single year during the two term served by President Bush...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on July 11, 2009 (boomark / email).