With about 20 executions carried out each year and a corresponding number of convictions, the imposition and application of capital punishment continues to decline in the US, albeit at a slow rate, yet the majority of Americans still support the death penalty.

In 2023, 24 executions were carried out in the USA, while a corresponding number is expected to be carried out this year as well. Last year, the death penalty was imposed on 21 people, a percentage corresponding to that of previous years.

In its annual report released last month, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) said that for the ninth year in a row, fewer than 30 people were executed in the US and fewer than 50 were sentenced to death.

All of the executions, all by injection, took place in five states: three in the South (Texas, Florida and Alabama) and two in the central US (Missouri and Oklahoma).

The first execution, which is scheduled for 2024, that of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama, will be held today through tomorrow, Friday by nitrogen inhalation.

This is the first time this method has been used, with the UN already expressing concern that it may constitute “torture”.

In this type of execution, death is caused by nitrogen hypoxia, replacing the oxygen the death row inmate breathes with nitrogen.

All 21 death sentences imposed in 2023 involve just seven states: Florida, California, Texas, Alabama, Arizona, North Carolina and Louisiana.

As in previous years, most people executed in 2023 “would likely not have been sentenced to death today”, mainly because they suffered from mental health problems or had psychological trauma or because of legislative changes in the imposition of capital punishment, the DPIC noted.

79% of those executed last year suffered from at least one serious mental illness, brain injury, mental retardation and/or severe childhood trauma.

The watchdog sees the steady decline in the number of death sentences over 20 years as “strong evidence that jurors have changed their minds about the effectiveness, propriety and morality of the death penalty.”

According to a recent poll by the Gallup Institute, a majority of Americans -50% versus 47% – believe that the death penalty is not applied fairly in the US, for the first time since 2000, when this survey began.

However, 53% of respondents still support the death penalty.

Twenty-three US states have abolished the death penalty, while six others have imposed a moratorium on executions following a decision by their governors.