A 59-year-old American man sentenced to death for a double murder committed in 2001 was executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday, prison authorities in the central state said, AFP reported.

The execution of Phillip Hancock at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester took place on the 24th of 2023 and is the last one scheduled in the United States this year. All 24 executions, all by lethal injection, took place in five states: three in the South – Texas, Florida and Alabama – and two in the middle of the country – Missouri and Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma State Board of Pardons recommended on November 8 that Philip Hancock’s sentence be commuted to life in prison, but Republican Governor Kevin Stitt did not implement the recommendation.

In 2004, he was sentenced to death for the April 2001 murders of Robert Jett and James Lynch, two members of a violent biker gang.

He always pleaded self-defense, claiming he was trapped in the home of Robert Jett, who was high on meth and who, along with James Lynch, tried to force him into a cage where he locked his victims. torture them

According to his version, contested by the prosecution and unconvinced by the jury, Phillip Hancock fought back, managed to get hold of Robert Jett’s gun and shot two assailants before fleeing.

Oklahoma resumed executions in 2021 after a six-year moratorium due to executions in 2014 and 2015.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 53 percent of Americans support the death penalty for people convicted of murder, the lowest level since 1972, when the Supreme Court blocked executions in the United States until they were reinstated four years later.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 US states, in three other states – California (in the west), Oregon (in the northwest) and Pennsylvania (in the northeast) – a moratorium on its use is observed.