Early in 1997, for the second time in three years, the State of Arkansas executed three men on the same day. The next morning Vatican Radio reported that “the death chambers in American prisons have resumed their sad work and the rhythm seems like that of a macabre assembly line”. Twenty years later, a period that has seen the number of countries that are abolitionist in law or practice rise to 141, and four months after the USA recorded its lowest annual execution total for 25 years, the Arkansas conveyor belt of death is about to restart with a vengeance.
