source: The Guardian

first published: 18 April 2024

Image Credit: Sourced by 4WardEverUK

Black incarcerated people have been subjected to prolonged and painful botched executions in the US at more than twice the rate of white death row inmates, a new study has found.

While glaring racial disparities have long been visible in US capital punishment, the report from the international human rights group Reprieve finds that the inequities exist even inside the death chamber.

It reveals a shocking racial disparity in the rate of botched executions in which lethal injections went awry, both nationwide and in individual death penalty states.

Reprieve analyzed all lethal injection executions between 1976, when the US death penalty was restarted after a brief pause, and 2023. It chronicled 73 confirmed botched procedures – a shocking figure in itself given the suffering that prolonged and flawed executions can cause despite the promise of a “humane” death made by advocates of lethal injections.

When looked at through a racial lens, 8% of executions of Black people were botched (37 times out of 465 executions), compared with 4% for white people (28 out of 780).

The Reprieve report has attracted congressional interest. Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senior senator from Massachusetts, said the findings “underscore the racial injustice of capital punishment and is yet another reason Congress must abolish the death penalty once and for all”.

Cory Booker, the Democratic junior senator from New Jersey, called on the Biden administration to do more “to address the devastating harms of capital punishment”. He urged the justice department to enforce laws governing the drugs used by states in lethal injections..

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