In 2016, Georgia took the lead in the entire nation of the number of lethal injections for the entire nation, even outranking Texas which slowed down due to rescheduling, with Georgia having a total of nine executions and Texas having only seven. Overall, nine executions is the highest it has been in a single year for Georgia since the government allowed executions to resume again. WSB-TV by Kate Brumback reported, “executions have been halted for months at a time, essentially creating a backlog of inmates who were eligible for execution that were cleared this year.”

Ultimately, the reason behind the high number of lethal injections is due to backlog, but what has made Georgia’s executions put on pause? The reasons behind the long waiting list were:

• The complications with whether or to change the method of using three drugs to one put the executions on hold between June 2012 to February 2013.
• Executions were put to a stop again during July 2013 to May 2014 because lawyers started to became suspicious of the law that protects the source of the lethal drug and decided to go up against it.
• According to the WSB-TV article, Georgia faces more legal problems when the drugs that were going to be used for the executions were found floating in chunks in a clear solution.

Essentially, these problems put the hold to Georgia’s executions, but it led Georgia to be the highest ranking in lethal injections when coming to resume the executions. Fortunately, the state is currently not planning any executions for 2017.