Noting some reasons the number of US executions in 2014 are so low

This new Christian Science Monitor article details some reasons why the US is on pace to have fewer than three dozen executions this year for the first time in decades. The piece carries this lengthy headline and subheading: "Death penalty in 2014: why US has seen fewest executions in 20 years: The downward trend in executions has several explanations, but experts say it’s probably not because of death penalty debates about innocence and guilt.  Rather, they say, it’s the details of how the state goes about ending a condemned life." Here are excerpts:

In late November, a federal judge emptied Wyoming’s death row of its last remaining occupant, Dale Wayne Eaton.  His lawyers don’t dispute that Mr. Eaton in 1988 raped and killed 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell after kidnapping her and holding her hostage in his compound.  The problem, the court found, was that his defense team failed to present him as a three-dimensional human being at his sentencing, including pointing out the severe beatings he received as a child and how he was evaluated to have low intelligence.

The ruling seemed of the moment in a country that has seen sentiments about the death penalty continue to shift in 2014.  So far this year, America has seen the fewest executions  — 32 — in 20 years....

A series of botched and disturbing executions in Oklahoma, Ohio, and Arizona has also contributed to the shifting debate, argues Rick Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.  Death penalty states are being forced to come up with new lethal injection drug formulas as traditional suppliers of the drugs stop distributing them to states.

The downward trend in executions has several explanations, but experts say it’s probably not because of debates about innocence and guilt.  Rather, they say, it’s the details of how the state goes about ending a condemned life, including the issues surrounding the lethal injection drugs.