So far this year, three men in the U.S. have already been executed. They are: Marion Bowman Jr., age 44; Steven Lawayne Nelson, age 37, and Demetrius Frazier, age 52.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 25 people in total were executed in the U.S. last year. That marked the 10th consecutive year where under 30 executions were performed in the country.
Bowman died by lethal injection Jan. 31 in South Carolina, the Post and Courier reported. He was the first man in the country put to death this year and the fourth in South Carolina since it resumed capital punishment four months ago. He was put on Death Row for the 2001 murder of 21-year-old Kandee Martin but maintained that he was innocent up through the final words released through his legal team, per USA Today.
Before his execution, the American Civil Liberties Union delivered a “plea” for Bowman’s life directed at South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster.
“A man who maintains his innocence of this capital crime. A man who has no physical evidence tying him to the crime. A man who did not receive a fair day in court,” said Paul Bowers, communications director for the ACLU South Carolina, of Bowman. “A changed man who has done his best to change himself in a dehumanizing environment. A man who has retained his humanity despite it all.”
The second execution of the year came this Wednesday, when a lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered to Nelson in Huntsville, Texas.
“Shortly before the injection began, the inmate repeatedly told his wife, who watched through a window a short distance from him, that he loved her and that he was thankful and grateful,” said an Associated Press report. It said that the two married recently, while he was in prison.
According to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Nelson was a “violent criminal who was found guilty of murdering a Texas pastor and sentenced to death by a Tarrant County jury.” Paxton was referring to murder of the Pastor Clinton “Clint” Dobson, who he said was “found dead after being viciously beaten and suffocated with a plastic bag at NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas.”
In addition to Dobson’s murder, Paxton said the man was committing a robbery and that he beat a woman who was present at the church. He described Nelson as a “chronic serious offender,” who also killed a fellow inmate in the Tarrant County Jail while awaiting trial. Robert Roberson, known for his conviction in a “shaken baby syndrome” case was also scheduled for an injection in Texas months ago, but that execution was halted.
Frazier’s execution – the third of the year – took place in Alabama via nitrogen gas, a controversial method due to concerns that it may cause “unnecessary suffering,” per a Newsweek report. According to the office of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Frazier broke into the Detroit home of Jacqueline Gresham in September 1991 and brutally raped her multiple times. He then apparently fled Michigan and went to California first before arriving in Birmingham, Ala.
In November 1991, Frazier saw a light in the ground-floor apartment of Pauline Brown and let himself in, said the Alabama Attorney General’s office.
“After searching the house for cash, he awakened Brown and raped her at gunpoint,” it continued. “While he was raping her, she begged him not to kill her, but he shot her in the head. Before leaving with less than $100, Frazier took a break to eat some bananas in Brown’s kitchen.”
He then returned to Detroit, Mich., and in March 1992 “forced fourteen-year-old Crystal Kendrick into a vacant house at gunpoint,” and directed her to undress, per the attorney general. Kendrick bolted and he allegedly chased her and shot her in the head.
“A passing driver found her naked body,” said the Alabama Attorney General’s office. Frazier was arrested in Detroit a few days after and faced a multitude of charges. While he was being interrogated, he confessed to Brown’s murder, the AG said.
In 1993, Frazier was convicted of his crimes against Kendrick and Gresham and received four life sentences in Michigan. He was then tried in Birmingham in 1995. There he was convicted of capital murder, and sentenced to death.
“In 2011, through an executive agreement, Frazier was transferred back to Alabama so that his sentence might be carried out,” explained the AG.
Per the Death Penalty Information Center, Michigan is one of the 23 states in the U.S. that does not have the death penalty.
“Frazier and supporting activists made last-ditch efforts to transfer him back to Michigan to serve his 4 life sentences there and avoid his death sentence in Alabama,” said AG Marshall. “These antics were unsuccessful.”
While public support for the death penalty was at a five-decade low last year, the Death Penalty Information Center noted that the U.S. Supreme Court turned away almost all petitions from death-sentenced prisoners in 2024.
“This approach reflects the Court’s retreat from the critical role it has historically played in regulating and limiting use of the death penalty,” the center said.
Since the 1970s, more than 1,600 people have been executed in the U.S. and the number has declined significantly over the past two decades. From 1972 to 2024, 200 death row prisoners were exonerated, including three last year, per the center.