US ranks in top 5 countries with most executions

The United States ranks among the top five countries in the world with the most executions in 2023, according to a new report from Amnesty International.

The US carried out 24 death sentences last year with only China (1,000+ executions), Iran (853+), Saudi Arabia (172), and Somalia (38+) using the death penalty more often.

It’s not the first time the US has received this dubious honor — it was also in the top five in 2022.

The new report captures the halfway status of the death penalty in America. At the end of last year, 23 states had abolished the death penalty, and others, like California, haven’t carred out executions in years, despite keeping capital punishment on the books.

Nonetheless, the rate of executions is little changed since the mid-1990s, and a small handful of states like Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Missouri and Alabama continue to carry out executions.

“A select number of US states demonstrated a chilling commitment to the death penalty and a callous intent to invest resources in the taking of human life,” Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said in a statement to The Independent.

The report points to specific examples of executions in the US as representative of the flaws in the capital punishment system, such as the August killing of Johnny Johnson in Missouri.

Johnson, who was convicted of murdering a six-year-old in 2002, had been diagnosed with numerous mental illnesses throughout his life including schizophrenia, major depression, psychotic disorder, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder. He was in an actively psychotic state when he committed his crime, according to officials.

He was executed without a hearing over whether he had the mental function to understand his