The Death Penalty in the USA

Despite strong reasons to doubt the safety of his conviction for murder, Marcellus Williams was executed in Alabama on Tuesday 24th September.  (The three liberal judges on the Supreme Court were in favour of clemency).  The elements of racial bias and prosecutorial misconduct so frequent in capital trials in the States were in evidence in this case too. 

Against this backdrop the Amnesty UK Anti-Death Penalty Network is asking us to join a year-long campaign to end executions in the USA, by adopting a particular state and keeping up a dialogue with the governor. 

The Reading group has decided to adopt the state of Ohio.  It has more scheduled executions over the next three years than any other state, but its governor, Mike DeWine, has declared an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty as a result of the impossibility of acquiring the drugs needed to carry out a lethal injection. DeWine indicated no executions would be carried out until the Ohio General Assembly approves another method, as lethal injection is the only one currently approved.  However, in January 2024, after Alabama authorized the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen hypoxia, Ohio lawmakers were considering legalizing nitrogen gas as a new method of execution aside from lethal injection, and the new method was supported by the Attorney-General of Ohio. So we have a what may be a brief window of opportunity while the moratorium is in place.

Please can you write out your own version of the attached letter to Governor DeWine. If you can do a photo of yourself posting the letter, that would be great - please email photos to deathpenalty@amnesty.org.uk and they will use them on social media.

If you use social media, please follow Amnesty's Anti-Death Penalty Project on social media and tag them into any messages you make so they can repost to amplify the message further. 

·Twitter/X - @AIUKAntiDeathP

·Facebook – search Amnesty Death Penalty Project 

·Instagram – Anti Death Penalty Project