This is a list of people executed in the United States in 2020. A total of seventeen people, all male, were executed in the United States in 2020, sixteen by lethal injection and one by electrocution. [1] The federal government of the United States executed ten people in 2020, ending a hiatus on federal executions which had lasted for over 17 years. State executions dropped significantly in 2020 compared to previous years, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. [2]
No. | Date of execution | Name | Age of person | Gender | Ethnicity | State | Method | Ref. | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
At execution | At offense | Age difference | ||||||||
1 | January 15, 2020 | John Steven Gardner | 64 | 49 | 15 | Male | White | Texas | Lethal injection | [3] |
2 | January 29, 2020 | Donnie Cleveland Lance | 66 | 43 | 23 | Georgia | [4] | |||
3 | February 6, 2020 | Abel Revill Ochoa | 47 | 29 | 18 | Hispanic | Texas | [5] | ||
4 | February 20, 2020 | Nicholas Todd Sutton | 58 | 23 | 35 | White | Tennessee | Electrocution | [6] | |
5 | March 5, 2020 | Nathaniel Woods | 43 | 27 | 16 | Black | Alabama | Lethal injection | [7] | |
6 | May 19, 2020 | Walter Barton | 64 | 35 | 29 | White | Missouri | [8] [9] | ||
7 | July 8, 2020 | Billy Joe Wardlow | 45 | 18 | 27 | Texas | [10] | |||
8 | July 14, 2020 | Daniel Lewis Lee | 47 | 22 | 25 | Federal government | [11] | |||
9 | July 16, 2020 | Wesley Ira Purkey | 68 | 46 | 22 | [12] [13] | ||||
10 | July 17, 2020 | Dustin Lee Honken | 52 | 25 | 27 | [14] | ||||
11 | August 26, 2020 | Lezmond Charles Mitchell | 38 | 20 | 18 | Native American | [15] | |||
12 | August 28, 2020 | Keith Dwayne Nelson | 45 | 24 | 21 | White | [16] | |||
13 | September 22, 2020 | William Emmett LeCroy Jr. | 50 | 31 | 19 | [17] | ||||
14 | September 24, 2020 | Christopher Andre Vialva | 40 | 19 | 21 | Black | [18] | |||
15 | November 19, 2020 | Orlando Cordia Hall | 49 | 23 | 26 | [19] [20] | ||||
16 | December 10, 2020 | Brandon Anthony Micah Bernard | 40 | 18 | 22 | [21] | ||||
17 | December 11, 2020 | Alfred Bourgeois | 56 | 38 | 18 | [22] | ||||
Average: | 51 years | 29 years | 22 years | |||||||
Gender | ||
---|---|---|
Male | 17 | 100% |
Female | 0 | 0% |
Ethnicity | ||
White | 10 | 59% |
Black | 5 | 29% |
Hispanic | 1 | 6% |
Native American | 1 | 6% |
State | ||
Federal government | 10 | 59% |
Texas | 3 | 18% |
Alabama | 1 | 6% |
Georgia | 1 | 6% |
Missouri | 1 | 6% |
Tennessee | 1 | 6% |
Method | ||
Lethal injection | 16 | 94% |
Electrocution | 1 | 6% |
Month | ||
January | 2 | 12% |
February | 2 | 12% |
March | 1 | 6% |
April | 0 | 0% |
May | 1 | 6% |
June | 0 | 0% |
July | 4 | 24% |
August | 2 | 12% |
September | 2 | 12% |
October | 0 | 0% |
November | 1 | 6% |
December | 2 | 12% |
Age | ||
30–39 | 1 | 6% |
40–49 | 8 | 47% |
50–59 | 4 | 24% |
60–69 | 4 | 24% |
Total | 17 | 100% |
Number of executions | |
---|---|
2021 | 11 |
2020 | 17 |
2019 | 22 |
Total | 50 |
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of executions that had been planned for 2020 were postponed and/or rescheduled. Texas postponed the executions of seven inmates who were due to be executed between March and September, beginning with Carlos Trevino, whose execution was postponed three times (first on March 11, then June 3, and finally September 30). [23] [24] [25] [26] Tennessee also postponed the executions of four inmates who were due to be executed between June and December. [27] [28] [29] [30] In addition, the December 8 execution of Lisa Montgomery by the federal government was postponed by the DC District Court after both of her defense attorneys caught COVID-19. [31] She was executed the following year, on January 13, 2021. [32]
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is responsible for all Federal prisons and provide for the care, custody, and control of federal prisoners.
The Federal Medical Center, Carswell is a United States federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, for female inmates of all security levels, primarily with special medical and mental health needs. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has a prison camp for minimum-security female inmates.
The Cook County Jail, located on 96 acres in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. It is sometimes referred to as California or Hotel California, as its address is on California Avenue. A city jail has existed on this site since after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, but major County prisoners were not generally collocated here until closure of the old Hubbard Street Criminal Court Building and jail in 1929. Since then, a 1920s neoclassical and art deco courthouse for the criminal division of the Cook County Circuit Court has operated at the South Lawndale complex.
William Byron Lee is an American businessman and politician who has served since 2019 as the 50th governor of Tennessee. A member of the Republican Party, Lee was president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Lee Company, a business operated by his family, from 1992 to 2016.
Edmund George Zagorski was an American convicted murderer from Michigan who was executed by the state of Tennessee for the 1983 murders of John Dotson and Jimmy Porter in Robertson County. Zagorski lured the two men into a wooded hunting ground under the pretense of selling them 100 lb (45 kg) of marijuana before shooting them and slitting their throats.
The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached the U.S. state of Tennessee on March 5, 2020. As of June 5, 2022, there are 2,023,815 confirmed cases, 26,103 deaths, and 12,825,885 reported tests.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted prisons globally. There have been outbreaks of COVID-19 reported in prisons and jails around the world, with the housing density and population turnover of many prisons contributing to an increased risk of contracting the virus compared to the general population. Prison crowding and lack of sanitation measures contribute to the risk of contracting diseases in prisons and jails. As a mitigation measure, several jurisdictions have released prisoners to reduce density and attempt to reduce the spread of the illness. There have also been protests among prisoners, riots and prison breaks in multiple countries in response to prisoner anger over their risk of contracting illness in prison conditions. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, health services within prisons had issues providing adequate care for incarcerated people, and this has only been exacerbated by the impacts of COVID-19. Minority groups within the prison system have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-abortion government officials in several American states enacted or attempted to enact restrictions on abortion, characterizing it as a non-essential procedure that can be suspended during the medical emergency. The orders have led to several legal challenges and criticism by abortion-rights groups and several national medical organizations, including the American Medical Association. Legal challenges on behalf of abortion providers, many of which are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, have successfully stopped some of the orders on a temporary basis, though bans in several states have not been challenged.
The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has had far-reaching consequences in the country that go beyond the spread of the disease itself and efforts to quarantine it, including political, cultural, and social implications.
Wesley Ira Purkey was an American convicted murderer who was executed by the United States federal government for the January 1998 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 16-year-old Jennifer Long. Purkey confessed to the crime while serving a life sentence for the murder of 80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales, whom he beat to death with a claw hammer in October 1998.
Oscar Franklin Smith is an American man convicted of capital murder in Tennessee and sentenced to death. Smith has maintained innocence and was scheduled to be executed on April 21, 2022, however, his execution was temporarily reprieved by Governor Bill Lee due to an oversight in the preparation for lethal injection.
Corey Johnson was an American convicted killer and co-founder of a Virginia drug trafficking gang who murdered seven people in 1992, with the purpose of increasing the gang's drug trade monopoly in Richmond, Virginia. Johnson and two members of his gang were found guilty under a federal law that targets large-scale drug traffickers, and Johnson was sentenced to death for each of the seven counts of murder he was tried for. Johnson remained on death row for 28 years before he was put to death by lethal injection on January 14, 2021, as the second-last person on federal death row to be executed before the 2021 moratorium on federal death sentences.
Pamela Irene Butler was a ten-year-old girl from Kansas City, Missouri who was abducted, raped, and murdered by Keith Dwayne Nelson in October 1999. Nelson abducted Butler while she was rollerblading in front of her house and took her to a remote forest. Once there, he raped her before strangling her to death with a wire. Nelson pleaded guilty to the charges pertaining to the murder of Butler and he was sentenced to death by a federal jury in November 2001. Nelson was incarcerated for nearly 21 years before he was put to death by lethal injection on August 28, 2020, therefore becoming the fifth person to be executed by the U.S. federal government after the resumption of federal executions in July 2020.
Alfred Bourgeois was a former truck driver who was executed by the U.S. federal government in 2020. Bourgeois was convicted of the murder of his toddler daughter Jakaren Harrison, whom he sexually assaulted and killed inside his truck in June 2002, and he himself also abused the girl for weeks leading up to the murder. Bourgeois was found guilty and sentenced to death by a federal jury in March 2004, since his crime took place on a military base in Texas where he was making a delivery. Bourgeois, who protested his innocence, was incarcerated for a total of 18 years before he was put to death via lethal injection on December 11, 2020.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Preceded by 2019 | List of people executed in the United States in 2020 | Succeeded by 2021 |