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A Mississippi man, who was found guilty of rape and murder, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, marking the third execution in the United States this week.
Charles Crawford, 59, received a death sentence for the 1994 rape and murder of Kristy Ray, a 20-year-old college student. The execution will take place at 6:00 pm Central Time (2300 GMT) at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.
On Tuesday, two convicted murderers were executed in Florida and Missouri, with another execution planned for Friday.
Richard Djerf, 55, is set to be executed by lethal injection in Arizona on Friday for the brutal murders of four members of a family in Phoenix in 1993.
This year, there have been 37 executions in the United States, the highest number since 2013, when 39 inmates were executed.
Florida has conducted the most executions with 14, followed by Texas with five, and South Carolina and Alabama with four each.
So far this year, 31 executions have used lethal injection, while two were carried out by firing squad and four by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that suffocates the prisoner by pumping nitrogen gas into a mask.
United Nations experts have criticised the use of nitrogen gas in capital punishment as cruel.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 out of the 50 states in the US, and three additional states—California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania—have moratoriums in effect.
President Donald Trump supports capital punishment and, on his first day in office, advocated for its expanded use “for the vilest crimes.”
