The latest schedule of executions in the United States is another grim reminder that capital punishment remains an entrenched, if deeply flawed, part of the American justice system. As Robert Dunham’s tweet outlines, at least four executions remain pending this month across multiple states, despite legal challenges, stays of execution, and ongoing appeals that reflect the deep contradictions at the heart of the death penalty.
Even among the nine executions originally scheduled for March 2025, we see a turbulent and arbitrary process at play:
• David Wood (TX) and Shawn Grate (OH) received stays of execution, their cases caught in the web of post-conviction appeals and legal disputes that can last decades.
• Larry Roy’s (LA) warrant was withdrawn because his appeals were not exhausted—yet other prisoners facing similar legal challenges remain on schedule to die.
• Christopher Sepulvado (LA) died on death row before his execution date, highlighting the reality that many capital punishment cases drag on so long that prisoners die of natural causes before the state can kill them.
What this snapshot reveals is a system without consistency, where justice depends more on legal technicalities, geography, and the discretion of appellate courts than on any fair or moral principle.
Proponents of the death penalty often claim that it delivers swift and certain justice—a final, deserved punishment for the worst crimes. Yet the reality is far different.
• The death penalty is anything but swift. Many of the people scheduled for execution this month were convicted decades ago, only now reaching the end of an appeal process riddled with delays, ineffective counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and racial bias.
• The death penalty is not fairly applied. The race of the victim and the location of the crime are among the strongest predictors of whether someone will receive a death sentence—not the severity of the crime.
• The death penalty does not deter crime. Study after study has found no credible evidence that executions reduce violent crime. States with the highest execution rates still experience high homicide rates, while states that have abolished the death penalty have seen no increase in violent crime.
Beyond the legal chaos, capital punishment remains plagued by botched executions and inhumane methods. Lethal injection—the primary execution method—has resulted in a disturbing number of botched procedures, where prisoners gasp for air, convulse, or suffer prolonged pain before dying. Even in 2024, Alabama attempted to execute a prisoner using nitrogen gas—a method untested in modern executions—raising serious ethical and legal concerns. Yet states continue to experiment with new methods, rather than confronting the fundamental question: Should the government be in the business of killing at all?
The death penalty in the United States is dying—slowly, inconsistently, but inevitably.
• 23 states have abolished the death penalty.
• Another 14 states have not carried out an execution in more than a decade.
• Public support for capital punishment is declining, especially as DNA evidence continues to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals. Yet, as this execution schedule shows, the machinery of death still grinds on in certain states, where political leaders cling to executions as a symbol of being “tough on crime.” At what point do we, as a society, finally acknowledge that the death penalty is irreparably broken, unjust, and fundamentally inhumane? If justice is truly blind, then we must ask why some prisoners are spared due to legal delays while others are rushed to the execution chamber, all under the guise of fairness. The time has come for the United States to abandon the death penalty once and for all. Justice should not be a lottery of legal maneuvering, geography, and luck—it should be fair, humane, and free of the irreversible mistakes that have already claimed too many innocent lives.
