JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
There haven't been any federal executions since President Biden imposed a moratorium back in 2021, but states are still carrying out the death penalty. Thirteen people have been executed this year, and over the next week, there are five prisoners scheduled to die despite the fact that problems persist with how to end their lives. NPR's Chiara Eisner of our investigations team is with us now. Hi there.
CHIARA EISNER, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: So Chiara, I understand that there are five states planning to execute prisoners next week, the first being tomorrow night in South Carolina. This is the first for the state of South Carolina in 13 years, is that right?
EISNER: Yes. And part of the reason it took that long is that the state has said it struggled to obtain those lethal injection drugs. They also had to wait for a recent ruling from the South Carolina Supreme Court that all three of its methods were constitutional. Now that they have that ruling, Khalil Allah, known before as Freddie Owens, he's scheduled to die tomorrow. Prisoners in South Carolina have to choose which of the state's three execution methods they prefer - that's the electric chair, lethal injection or the firing squad - but Allah asked his lawyer to choose for him. He's Muslim, and he felt like choosing how to die would have been like suicide, which is against his faith. So his lawyer picked lethal injection.
SUMMERS: How did South Carolina solve the problem of getting these lethal injection drugs?
EISNER: Well, we know the state apparently has the pentobarbital sedative that it needs, but lawyers for Allah say the Department of Corrections hasn't been transparent about much else. They say they've asked for basic facts, like the drug's expiration date and the results of state testing, but they haven't gotten any answers. I talked to Lindsey Vann. She's the executive director of the nonprofit representing him, Justice 360.
LINDSEY VANN: The Department of Corrections has told us that they had to try 1,300 different potential suppliers before they were able to get the drugs, and now they won't tell us much of anything about the drugs.
EISNER: Vann says they filed a federal lawsuit. One other thing about this execution, Juana. We've done a lot of reporting on the mental and physical toll on execution workers in South Carolina and 16 other states. Workers told me a first execution like this after a long break can be especially traumatic. And in this case, it's been 13 years.
SUMMERS: Lethal injections were causing problems in Alabama, too, where the state is scheduled to execute a prisoner next Thursday. Are they going to use it again there?
EISNER: They're not. The state tried to execute Alan Eugene Miller by lethal injection once already. In 2022, workers poked him with needles for more than an hour before the execution was called off. Now Alabama is going to try again, but this time they're trying with nitrogen gas. If that sounds like deja vu, it's because that was the same unusual situation with Kenneth Smith, who survived Alabama's first lethal injection attempt and later became the first person executed with nitrogen gas in the country. Not everyone agrees that gas was better, though. When Smith was executed with nitrogen, the state said everything went according to plan. But witnesses in the death chamber said he convulsed as the gas was administered, and one said it looked like torture.
SUMMERS: Chiara, I mean, five executions in seven days, it does sound like a lot. But is it?
EISNER: That's a record for the year. The other executions are in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. And I should add that three of the men scheduled to die are Black. That's important because a report this year found that Black prisoners were more likely to experience botched lethal injection executions. But despite all these scheduled executions, it looks like Americans may be changing their minds about the death penalty. For the first time last year, a recent poll showed a growing number think the death penalty is applied unfairly in the U.S.
SUMMERS: That's Chiara Eisner with NPR's investigations team. Thank you.
EISNER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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