There are 5 executions set over a week’s span in the US. That’s the most in decades

Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Death row inmates in five separate states were set to be put to death in the span of one week. If the fifth is carried out as planned, the executions will mark the first time in more than 20 years that five executions were held in seven days. The unusually high number defies a yearslong trend of decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The fourth execution occurred Thursday in Oklahoma and a fifth is planned later Thursday in Alabama. If that proceeds, the U.S. will have reached 1,600 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.