US has 3 executions in 24 hours this week amid death penalty uptick

Three states are set to carry out executions this week in decades-old cases involving a total of seven murder victims.

The executions will begin in Texas and Georgia, with each state planning to put a man to death within an hour of each other on Wednesday, Sept. 16. Alabama is set to carry out an execution the next day.

Stacey Humphreys, a 53-year-old inmate being executed in Georgia, was convicted of the 2003 murders of two real estate agents, 21-year-old Lori Brown and 33-year-old Cindy Williams. In Texas about an hour after Humphreys' execution, the state is set to put LeJames Norman, 40, to death for the triple murder of his neighbors during a robbery that turned deadly in 2005.

And on Thursday, Sept. 17, Alabama plans to execute Jeffery Lee, 50, for a double murder during a pawn shop holdup in 1998.

If all three lethal injections move forward as expected, states will have executed 28 death row inmates this year. With another 11 executions scheduled, and more expected to come, a small number of states are continuing a two-year uptick in the death penalty.

Here's what you need to know about each execution being carried out this week…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/