Three states are scheduled to carry out executions on the same day for the first time in nearly 16 years, with Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma each set to put a death row inmate to death by lethal injection on Thursday.
In Tennessee, Anthony Darrell Hines, 66, faces execution for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a motel maid he stabbed to death in Kingston Springs. Hines had challenged the state's lethal-injection protocol, arguing the physician who oversaw a botched execution in May was unqualified and likely to mishandle his as well; the Tennessee Supreme Court rejected the claim, finding the earlier problems an isolated mishap. In Alabama, Jeremy Williams, 41, is set to die for the 2021 rape and murder of a 5-year-old girl; Williams pleaded guilty and has declined to appeal, asking that his sentence be carried out. In Oklahoma, Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, in his 70s, faces execution for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend and has likewise asked for no clemency.
A rare convergence, and a rising count
The last time three U.S. executions took place on a single day was in 2010, according to the CNN report on Thursday's schedule. This year's cluster comes as capital punishment activity has risen nationally even as public support for the death penalty has continued its long-term decline in opinion polling. Death penalty opponents have pointed to Cuesta-Rodriguez's advanced age as a particular risk factor, noting that older inmates' compromised veins have contributed to difficult, prolonged lethal-injection procedures in other states this year.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has said she does not plan to intervene in the Williams case, and courts in all three states have denied last-minute appeals. Anti-death-penalty advocates have used the coincidence of Thursday's schedule to renew calls for a national moratorium, arguing that clustering executions obscures scrutiny of any single case, while victims' family members and state officials in each of the three cases have said the sentences reflect the severity of the crimes.
Barring last-minute stays from federal courts, all three executions are expected to proceed by lethal injection Thursday evening, a rare simultaneous exercise of capital punishment that death penalty researchers say is likely to renew debate over execution protocols, drug-sourcing secrecy and the pace of appeals in death penalty states.
