A Staggering Pace of Executions: Catholic Mobilizing Network Responds

In the span of just one week, between Friday, September 20, 2024 and Thursday, September 26, 2024, five men were executed in the United States. This week of executions claimed the lives of Freddie Owens (South Carolina), Marcellus Williams (Missouri), Travis Mullis (Texas), Emmanuel Littlejohn (Oklahoma), and Alan Miller (Alabama).

Several of these cases gained national attention due to intricacies regarding individuals’ guilt, petitions for clemency, and the execution method used.

For Marcellus Williams, his long-held claim of innocence gained significant support and petitions to call off his execution. In a 6-3 vote at the Supreme Court, his final appeals were denied. Emmanuel Littlejohn, on the other hand, did receive a favorable vote from his state Board of Pardons and Paroles, who recommended to Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt that Emmanuel be granted clemency. Despite this recommendation, Governor Stitt declined to intervene and allowed Emmanuel’s execution to be carried out. And Alan Miller, who was executed in the state’s second attempt to take his life, was put to death in the world’s second-ever execution by nitrogen hypoxia. In this method, Alan was forced to breathe pure nitrogen gas until he suffocated to death due to the lack of oxygen.

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, Executive Director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, reacted to these executions saying: “Simply stated, instead of offering real justice or authentic healing that victims and communities need and desire, executions endorse and perpetuate the cycle of violence. As Catholics, we believe in the dignity of all human life, no matter the harm one has caused or suffered. In the face of such death-dealing this week, we have a sacred responsibility and the moral agency to usher in the change we seek.”

Vaillancourt Murphy explained that Catholics have a unique role in opposing executions, especially with October’s Respect Life Month on the horizon and the global World Day Against the Death Penalty coming up on October 10. “Catholics have a timely opportunity to proclaim that each of us is made in God’s image,” she said. “From campuses to corner stores, from the pews and pulpits, as people of faith and hope, we must shine our light ever brighter in this present darkness. Together, we not only can turn back this regressive tide but also generate such a groundswell that a tipping point comes to wipe out the unholy and unjust use of state-sponsored killing in America once and for all.”

Furthermore, Vaillancourt Murphy highlighted the particular moment in the U.S. political sphere as an important backdrop for these executions.

“One can easily speculate that the uptick in executions as well as efforts to expand the use of capital punishment in certain states could be for reasons of political manipulation or signaling during an election season. Politicians are known to wield the death penalty as a political tool to appear ‘tough on crime,’ treating people on death row like political pawns.”

“The death penalty is contrary to human dignity, immoral, flawed, arbitrary, and useless as a deterrent to crime,” said Vaillancourt Murphy. “Mobilizing Catholics for advocacy has substantial potential to advance progress toward death penalty abolition. Catholics, comprising 22% of the U.S. population, hold significant influence, particularly in key death penalty states with large Catholic populations.”