A man on death row was saved at the last minute by the governor of the southern state of Oklahoma. Tremane Wood, 46, was convicted of the murder of 19-year-old Ronnie Wipf on January 1, 2002. But at the last minute, the state’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, announced that he would follow the advice of the pardon commission, which on November 5 had recommended that his sentence be commuted to life in prison.
This decision “considers the same punishment his brother suffered for the murder of a young man and warrants a harsh sentence that will keep dangerous criminals out of harm’s way,” explained Kevin Stitt in a press release.
The governor, in office for nearly seven years, has commuted only one death sentence so far, in 2021, four hours before an execution. The pardon commission had recommended commuting Tremane Wood’s sentence primarily because of the failings of his court-appointed attorney.
His older brother, who benefited from a stronger defense, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He admitted to the fatal stabbing and suicide in prison in 2019.
Lethal injection, nitrogen inhalation, firing squad…
Yet in other parts of America, we continue to employ the death penalty, in all its forms. In Florida, Bryan Jennings, a 66-year-old former Marine, was executed Thursday for the 1979 rape and murder of Rebecca Kunash, a six-year-old girl, local authorities announced.
In South Carolina, in the southeast of the country, Stephen Bryant, 44, will be put to death this Friday by firing squad. The author of the murders of three men in the span of five days in 2004, he left a defiant message written in the blood of his final victim, Willard Tietjen, at the crime scene: “Catch me if you can.”
A total of 42 executions have been carried out in the United States since the start of this year, the highest number since the 43 executions recorded in 2012. Most were carried out by lethal injection, with as many as 35 executions in 2025.
Five methods involved inhaling nitrogen, a method first used in the world by (south) Alabama in 2024 and compared by UN experts to a form of “torture”, and two methods were used using a firing squad in South Carolina, the first time in the United States since 2010.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of America’s 50 states. Three other states, California, Oregon and Pennsylvania, have implemented moratoriums on executions based on governors’ decisions.
