St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP

Freddie “Khalil” Owens. Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams. Emmanuel Littlejohn. Travis Mullis. Alan Eugene Miller.

All five men were executed within one week in five different states, a period political scientist Austin Sarat condemned as “ the worst execution spree in three decades.”

The most high-profile execution took place on Tuesday when Missouri executed Marcellus Williams, who had maintained his innocence for decades. The execution was carried out despite the prosecutor’s office in the 1998 murder trial acknowledging that evidence had been mishandled and therefore urged for the conviction to be vacated. The execution of Miller in Alabama also received intense media attention this week over the state’s use of nitrogen gas, a method many have likened to torture.

The five executions once........

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