Image taken from DW.

By Roberto Morejón

The UN says the world is moving away from the use of capital punishment, with 170 member countries abolishing it, but in the United States the pace persists.

With a former president like Donald Trump, a fervent supporter of such extreme processes, it became more cumbersome for opponents to continue their confrontation.

Trump reluctantly left the White House, but the executions continue in 2022, when the calendar marks one mentally disabled prisoner and another of African descent.

These are not isolated cases because more than 2,500 people were placed on the fateful death row last November.

The percentage of blacks on death row is three times higher than that of whites, and in general, executions have higher reports in southern states, led by Republicans.

No one tries to take away the perversity and guilt of the accused, it only leads to meditation to maintain an excessive recourse, based on denounced methods, such as lethal injection.  

The African-American John Grant received the dose in a prison in the southern state of Oklahoma in 2021.

Witnesses testified how the inmate went into terrible convulsions before being knocked unconscious and ending the ordeal with a combination of drugs.

Grant's attorneys argued that the prior use of the sedative Midazolam represented torment in violation of the prisoner's constitutional rights.

This is not an adherence to capital punishment unique to Oklahoma, as Texas has executed more than 460 people since its reintroduction in the United States, nearly 40 percent of the total in the country.

A similar pattern of extending the time period between convictions and executions is observed in all states.

These are the vicissitudes of inmates with the maximum sentences, although the situation of others is not without concern in a nation with more than two million people behind bars.

It is a contentious issue in a country whose politicians frantically reiterate that they lead the world in respect for human rights.

As they await their turn on the scaffold, death row inmates wonder whether the inflammatory oratory of their rulers will address the use of the death penalty and the reported methods of applying it.