This week is shaping up to be a very bad one for death penalty opponents in the United States. If all goes according to plan, states will put five people to death in a one-week span ending Thursday. That is an unusual, though not unprecedented, number of executions in such a short period of time.

To understand just how unusual it is, consider that in 2023, the total number of executions for the entire year was 24, less than one execution every other week. In 2022, 18 people were put to death, for a rate of roughly one execution every third week.

Indeed, one would have to go back almost three decades, to 1997, to find a parallel to what may unfold this week. During a seven-day period in May that year, Texas executed five people.

But unlike 1997, this week’s executions will occur in five different states.

It all started on Friday when South Carolina executed Khalil Allah, formerly known as Freddie Owens, its first execution since 2011. The others are planned for Tuesday and Thursday in Texas, Missouri, Alabama, and Oklahoma, all of which regularly carry out executions.

It is just a coincidence that all these states are moving in lockstep. Coincidence or not, a close look at each of the cases in which someone will be executed this week highlights not just the kind of horrible crimes that can land someone on death row but also many of the death penalty’s crippling problems.

This week’s executions include two cases in which there are substantial doubts about whether the person being executed is actually innocent. Two others illustrate the fact that the death penalty is often used against people who are poor, vulnerable, abused, and in many ways broken, not against the worst criminals. The fifth highlights America’s futile search for a method of execution that will be safe, reliable, and humane.

And the fact that three of the five people who will be executed this week are Black only underlines the continuing salience of........

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