Eleven people, ten male and one female, were executed in the United States in 2021, all by lethal injection. [1] With only eleven executions occurring throughout the year, 2021 saw the fewest number of executions within a single year since 1988. [2]
| No. | Date of execution | Name | Age of person | Gender | Ethnicity | State | Method | Ref. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| At execution | At offense | Age difference | ||||||||
| 1 | January 13, 2021 | Lisa Marie Montgomery | 52 | 36 | 16 | Female | White | Federal government | Lethal injection | [3] |
| 2 | January 14, 2021 | Corey Johnson | 23 | 29 | Male | Black | [4] | |||
| 3 | January 16, 2021 | Dustin John Higgs | 48 | 25 | [5] | |||||
| 4 | May 19, 2021 | Quintin Phillippe Jones | 41 | 20 | 21 | Texas | [6] | |||
| 5 | June 30, 2021 | John William Hummel | 45 | 34 | 11 | White | [7] | |||
| 6 | September 28, 2021 | Rick Allan Rhoades | 57 | 27 | 30 | [8] | ||||
| 7 | October 5, 2021 | Ernest Lee Johnson | 61 | 33 | 28 | Black | Missouri | [9] | ||
| 8 | October 21, 2021 | Willie B. Smith III | 52 | 22 | 30 | Alabama | [10] | |||
| 9 | October 28, 2021 | John Marion Grant | 60 | 37 | 23 | Oklahoma | [11] | |||
| 10 | November 17, 2021 | David Neal Cox Sr. | 50 | 39 | 11 | White | Mississippi | [12] | ||
| 11 | December 9, 2021 | Bigler Jobe Stouffer II | 79 | 42 | 37 | Oklahoma | [13] | |||
| Average: | 54 years | 31 years | 24 years | |||||||
| Gender | ||
|---|---|---|
| Male | 10 | 91% |
| Female | 1 | 9% |
| Ethnicity | ||
| Black | 6 | 55% |
| White | 5 | 45% |
| State | ||
| Federal government | 3 | 27% |
| Texas | 3 | 27% |
| Oklahoma | 2 | 18% |
| Alabama | 1 | 9% |
| Mississippi | 1 | 9% |
| Missouri | 1 | 9% |
| Method | ||
| Lethal injection | 11 | 100% |
| Month | ||
| January | 3 | 27% |
| February | 0 | 0% |
| March | 0 | 0% |
| April | 0 | 0% |
| May | 1 | 9% |
| June | 1 | 9% |
| July | 0 | 0% |
| August | 0 | 0% |
| September | 1 | 9% |
| October | 3 | 27% |
| November | 1 | 9% |
| December | 1 | 9% |
| Age | ||
| 40–49 | 3 | 27% |
| 50–59 | 5 | 45% |
| 60–69 | 2 | 18% |
| 70–79 | 1 | 9% |
| Total | 11 | 100% |
| Number of executions | |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 18 |
| 2021 | 11 |
| 2020 | 17 |
| Total | 46 |
A number of executions were canceled in 2021. Two executions in Tennessee were stayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. [14] [15] Three executions in Texas were also stayed to review intellectual disability claims. [16] [17] [18] Five more executions in Texas were reprieved due to the state not allowing the inmate's pastors to lay their hands on them during the execution. [19] [20] [21] [22] Three executions in Ohio were reprieved due to the unofficial moratorium in place on capital punishment in Ohio by Governor Mike DeWine, due to problems in securing the drugs needed for lethal injections. [23] All three of these executions were rescheduled for 2024, however all three were postponed again until 2027. [24] [25] An execution in Pennsylvania was also reprieved due to the moratorium in place on capital punishment in Pennsylvania by Governor Tom Wolf. The execution of Gerald Pizzuto in Idaho was stayed by the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole after they granted a request for a commutation hearing. Attorneys from both sides agreed to the stay of execution until the hearing concluded in November 2021. [26]
Two executions in South Carolina were stayed by the South Carolina Supreme Court because the state did not have a way of carrying out execution by firing squad at the time. The new capital punishment law in the state requires inmates to pick between the electric chair or firing squad. At the time, South Carolina had no way of executing inmates via firing squad, meaning the inmates had no choice but to be executed via electrocution. The court ruled the inmates must have the choice available to them before they can be executed. [27] [28] The execution of Zane Floyd in Nevada was stayed by a federal judge, who ruled that the state needed more time to determine the constitutionality of the lethal injection drugs that would be used for his execution. [29] [30] The execution of Julius Jones in Oklahoma was halted hours before he was due to be executed after his death sentence was commuted to life without the possibility of parole by Governor Kevin Stitt. [31]
| Preceded by 2020 | List of people executed in the United States in 2021 | Succeeded by 2022 |