This is a list of people executed in the United States in 2017. A total of twenty-three people, all male, were executed in the United States in 2017, all by lethal injection. The state of Arkansas executed four people in April, ending a hiatus on executions in the state which had lasted for over 11 years. [1]
No. | Date of execution | Name | Age of person | Gender | Ethnicity | State | Method | Ref. | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
At execution | At offense | Age difference | ||||||||
1 | January 11, 2017 | Christopher Chubasco Wilkins | 48 | 37 | 11 | Male | White | Texas | Lethal injection | [2] [3] |
2 | January 18, 2017 | Ricky Javon Gray | 39 | 28 | Black | Virginia | [4] | |||
3 | January 26, 2017 | Terry Darnell Edwards | 43 | 15 | Texas | [5] [6] | ||||
4 | January 31, 2017 | Mark Anthony Christeson | 37 | 18 | 19 | White | Missouri | [7] | ||
5 | March 7, 2017 | Rolando Ruiz Jr. | 44 | 20 | 24 | Hispanic | Texas | [8] [9] | ||
6 | March 14, 2017 | James Eugene Bigby | 61 | 32 | 29 | White | [10] [11] | |||
7 | April 20, 2017 | Ledell T. Lee | 51 | 27 | 24 | Black | Arkansas | [12] | ||
8 | April 24, 2017 | Jack Harold Jones Jr. | 52 | 30 | 22 | White | [13] [14] | |||
9 | Marcel Wayne Williams | 46 | 24 | Black | ||||||
10 | April 27, 2017 | Kenneth Dewayne Williams | 38 | 20 | 18 | [15] | ||||
11 | May 17, 2017 | John W. Ledford III | 45 | 25 | White | Georgia | [16] | |||
12 | May 26, 2017 | Thomas Douglas "Tommy" Arthur | 75 | 40 | 35 | Alabama | [17] | |||
13 | June 8, 2017 | Robert Bryant Melson | 46 | 22 | 24 | Black | [18] | |||
14 | July 6, 2017 | William Charles Morva | 35 | 24 | 11 | White | Virginia | [19] | ||
15 | July 26, 2017 | Ronald Ray Phillips | 43 | 19 | 24 | Ohio | [20] | |||
16 | July 27, 2017 | Taichin Preyor | 46 | 33 | 13 | Black | Texas | [21] [22] | ||
17 | August 24, 2017 | Mark James Asay | 53 | 23 | 30 | White | Florida | [23] | ||
18 | September 13, 2017 | Gary Wayne Otte | 45 | 20 | 25 | Ohio | [24] | |||
19 | October 5, 2017 | Michael Ray Lambrix | 57 | 22 | 35 | Florida | [25] | |||
20 | October 12, 2017 | Robert Lynn Pruett | 38 | 20 | 18 | Texas | [26] | |||
21 | October 19, 2017 | Torrey Twane McNabb | 40 | 20 | Black | Alabama | [27] | |||
22 | November 8, 2017 | Patrick Charles Hannon | 53 | 26 | 27 | White | Florida | [28] | ||
23 | Ruben Cardenas Ramirez | 47 | 21 | Hispanic | Texas | [29] [30] | ||||
Average: | 47 years | 25 years | 22 years |
Gender | ||
---|---|---|
Male | 23 | 100% |
Female | 0 | 0% |
Ethnicity | ||
White | 13 | 56% |
Black | 8 | 35% |
Hispanic | 2 | 9% |
State | ||
Texas | 7 | 30% |
Arkansas | 4 | 17% |
Alabama | 3 | 13% |
Florida | 3 | 13% |
Ohio | 2 | 9% |
Virginia | 2 | 9% |
Georgia | 1 | 4% |
Missouri | 1 | 4% |
Method | ||
Lethal injection | 23 | 100% |
Month | ||
January | 4 | 17% |
February | 0 | 0% |
March | 2 | 9% |
April | 4 | 17% |
May | 2 | 9% |
June | 1 | 4% |
July | 3 | 13% |
August | 1 | 4% |
September | 1 | 4% |
October | 3 | 13% |
November | 2 | 9% |
December | 0 | 0% |
Age | ||
30–39 | 5 | 22% |
40–49 | 11 | 48% |
50–59 | 5 | 22% |
60–69 | 1 | 4% |
70–79 | 1 | 4% |
Total | 23 | 100% |
Number of executions | |
---|---|
2018 | 25 |
2017 | 23 |
2016 | 20 |
Total | 68 |
On April 24, 2017, Arkansas carried out back-to-back executions. Convicted rapist and murderer Jack Harold Jones, age 52, was pronounced dead at 7:20 pm Monday. Approximately three hours later, convicted rapist and murderer Marcel Williams, age 46, was pronounced dead at 10:33 pm. Jones was sentenced to death for the 1995 rape and murder of Mary Phillips (August 18, 1959 – June 6, 1995) and the near-fatal assault of her then-10-year-old daughter, Lacy Phillips (born July 9, 1984), during a botched robbery in Bald Knob, Arkansas. Williams was sent to death row for the 1994 rape and murder of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson, whom he kidnapped from a gas station in central Arkansas.
The last double execution in Arkansas was on September 8, 1999. [31] By conducting the double execution in 2017, Arkansas became the first U.S. state to put more than one inmate to death on the same day in 17 years. The last state to do so was Texas, which executed two murderers in August 2000. Oklahoma planned a double execution in 2014 but scrapped plans for the second one after the first (the execution of Clayton Lockett) went awry. [32]
Arkansas executed four men in an eight-day period in 1960. The only quicker pace included quadruple executions in 1926 and 1930. [32]
The Texas 7 were a group of prisoners who escaped from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, on December 13, 2000. Six of the seven were apprehended over a month later, between January 21–23, 2001, as a direct result of the television show America's Most Wanted. The seventh committed suicide before he could be arrested. The six surviving members were all convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Irving, Texas, police officer Aubrey Wright Hawkins, who was shot and killed when responding to a robbery perpetrated by the Texas Seven. Four of the six sentenced have since been executed.
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, like aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 states have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums. The existence of capital punishment in the United States can be traced to early colonial Virginia. Along with Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, the United States is one of four advanced democracies and the only Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the United States as one of four countries to still use this method. It is common practice for the condemned to be administered sedatives prior to execution, regardless of the method used.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Oklahoma.
The Brownstone Lane murders were the mass murders of four people at a residence on Brownstone Lane in Houston, Texas. On June 20, 1992, three men tied up six people and shot all of them in the head execution-style. Four of the six victims died. The perpetrators: Marion Butler Dudley, Arthur "Squirt" Brown Jr., and Antonio "Tony" Lamone Dunson were convicted of capital murder. Dudley and Brown were sentenced to death, while Dunson was sentenced to life in prison.
Joseph Paul Jernigan was a Texas murderer who was executed by lethal injection at 12:31 a.m.
Genaro Ruiz Camacho, Jr., aka Geno Camacho, was a cannabis dealer and organized crime leader in Texas who was linked to four murders and eventually executed by the state of Texas.
Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
Steven Michael Woods Jr. was an American who was executed by lethal injection in the state of Texas. Woods was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of the capital murders of Ronald Whitehead, 21, and Bethena Brosz, 19, on May 2, 2001, in The Colony, Texas. Woods petitioned to media outlets for prisoner rights in February 2004.
Leon David Dorsey IV was an American serial killer who was executed in 2008 for the murders of two Blockbuster store employees. Dorsey murdered the two men and a Korean store clerk during a rampage in Texas in 1994. He confessed and was later given a death sentence. He was executed at the Huntsville Unit on August 12, 2008.
James Emery Paster and Stephen Albert McCoy were American serial killers who murdered at least three people in Texas between 1980 and 1981. Both were sentenced to death and executed at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, via lethal injection. Prior to Emery's execution, he confessed to two other murders in the Houston area, but he was never tried for either of these killings. McCoy was executed in May 1989, in what was considered a botched execution. Emery was executed in September 1989.
Ramon Torres Hernandez was an American serial killer, kidnapper and rapist responsible for at least three murders in Bexar County, Texas from 1994 to 2001, and is a prime suspect in two others. Following his arrest, he admitted to the killings, was sentenced to death and ultimately executed in 2012.
Carl Wayne Buntion was an American man convicted of capital murder in Texas and sentenced to death. On April 21, 2022, at the age of 78, he became the oldest inmate to be executed in Texas and the state's first execution of 2022.
Preceded by 2016 | List of people executed in the United States in 2017 | Succeeded by 2018 |