Northwestern legal expert on unusually high number of executions this week

CHICAGO --- Since Friday, five men on death row have been, or are scheduled to be, executed within a one-week span. The most high-profile is the case of Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams, executed in Missouri Tuesday night after a last-ditch effort to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the procedure failed.  

Two more executions are scheduled for Thursday night: Emmanuel Antonio Littlejohn in Oklahoma and Alan Eugene Miller in Alabama.

Meredith Martin Rountree, senior lecturer and death penalty expert at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, says this isn’t just a case of happenstance. Professor Rountree is available to media to speak on the subject.

On the string of executions:

“I don't think this is happenstance. It’s been my sense that what we're seeing now is a confluence of two trends. First, I think the 13 federal executions in the last six months of the Trump presidency was a signal that the death penalty was a political asset to conservative politicians. Shortly after that, you saw some remarkable execution date settings in multiple red states.

“During the final six months of the Trump Administration, 12 men were executed along with one woman, the first in a 17-year hiatus. After that, our research found several examples of states that had set execution days — jurisdictions that hadn't sought to execute anybody in a while. It seemed as though the federal government’s actions may have influenced this effort.

“The second trend is the consequence of the highly restrictive scope of federal habeas review. The federal habeas statute was overhauled in 1996 to limit federal court review — a while ago, yes, but it takes time for these cases to move through the system.

“Before 1996, federal courts had greater power in deciding whether a defendant’s federal constitutional rights had been violated. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) substantially restricted the federal courts’ power. The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the AEDPA has severely curtailed condemned people’s ability to present their arguments to unelected judges, as well as to present new evidence. Now federal courts are generally restricted to assessing whether the state court was not just wrong, but unreasonably wrong in deciding the federal constitutional issues raised by the prisoner.”

On the shortage of lethal injection drugs:

“The availability of lethal injection drugs remains a challenge, so we are seeing states experimenting with different types of modes of execution. For example, we’re seeing the return of electrocution and firing squads and the new methods of nitrogen gas.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly signaled its hostility to claims that lethal injection can be cruel and unusual punishment. As a result, the obstacles for states to move forward with different methods are much smaller than they were.”

On Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams case:

“I have wondered about the role of politics in Missouri, and whether the state officials’ rejection of the local prosecutor’s position against executing Mr. Williams reflects a political backlash. Traditionally, local prosecutors are seen as responsible for vindicating the interest of the community that elected them. However, in Florida, for example, we saw larger conflicts between elected so-called progressive prosecutors and state officials play out over the death penalty.”

If you’d like to arrange an interview with Professor Rountree, please reach out to shanice.harris@northwestern.edu or 847-467-5498.