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Spate of high-profile US death penalty cases fuels public outrage
source: The Guardian
first published: 19 December 2024
Image Credit: Donald Tong at www.Pexels.com
A spate of high-profile death penalty cases in 2024 have prompted an unprecedented outburst of public anger and frustration, as several condemned prisoners with credible claims of innocence have fought their pending executions in the court of public opinion.
Profound qualms about the reliability of death sentences have been raised over a number of disturbing cases this year. They include that of Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, killed by Missouri through lethal injection in September despite critical doubts around the strength of his conviction and a massive public protest culminating in a petition signed by 1.5 million people.
Other searing cases included the Texas prisoner currently fighting execution for a conviction based on “shaken baby syndrome”, which many experts now reject as junk science, and Richard Glossip, whose 27-year struggle to prove his innocence has galvanized even pro-death penalty Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma to rally to his side.
The roiling of public outrage over condemned prisoners’ claims of innocence, and the protests that have erupted over the fairness of US capital punishment, are some of the headlines of the 2024 annual review of the practice by the authoritative Death Penalty Information Center (DPI).
The report was released just hours before the final execution of the year was slated to be carried out in Oklahoma, where Kevin Ray Underwood died by lethal injection on Thursday morning.
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