Executions nearly double in 2025 due to dramatic rise in Florida : NPR

A gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, October 9, 2014. A report from the Death Penalty Information Center noted an increase in executions in Florida in 2025.

Sue Ogrocki/AP

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Sue Ogrocki/AP

Executions in the United States nearly doubled in 2025 compared to the previous year, with Florida executing more prisoners in 12 months than ever before, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The organization, which monitors capital punishment, released its year-end report on Monday. The picture is complex: although public support for the death penalty has remained low, executions have increased.

“These trends show that there is a real disconnect between what the American public wants and what elected officials are doing on the death penalty,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI). The group does not take a position on the death penalty itself but criticizes the way it is applied.

According to the report, states have carried out 46 executions so far in 2025, compared to 25 in 2024. Two executions are planned in Georgia and Florida later this week, bringing the total to 48, the highest in more than 15 years.

Nineteen people – about 40% of the national total – have been or will be executed in Florida this year.

This dramatic increase coincides with the second term of President Trump, a staunch supporter of the death penalty. Since returning to office, Trump has ordered the resumption of federal executions, which had been suspended by former President Joe Biden in 2021. The most recent federal executions took place during the final days of Trump’s first term.

Florida responsible for 40% of this year’s executions nationwide

This year, Florida broke its record for the most executions in a single year, up from eight in 2014.

At a press conference in November, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said executions in the state had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but those issues had since been resolved. He said he had a duty to the victims’ families to ensure that the death sentence was carried out “smoothly and as quickly as possible”.

“We’ve heard from many family members of the victims over the years and if you think about it, some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s and they’re waiting and there’s an appeal and this and that,” he said. “There is a saying that justice delayed is justice denied.”

DeSantis said he also believes the death penalty could be a “powerful deterrent” to crime. “I think this is an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders,” he added.

On Thursday, Florida is expected to execute its 19th person this year. Frank Walls, 58, was sentenced to death after being convicted of killing Edward Alger and Ann Peterson during a home invasion robbery in 1987. Walls later confessed to three other murders.

The second highest number of executions carried out in a state was five, which occurred in Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas.

Among those executed were prisoners suffering from PTSD and evidence of intellectual disabilities.

At least 40 death row inmates who have been or will be executed this year had what DPI described as “vulnerabilities,” such as brain damage, severe mental illness, severe childhood trauma or an IQ in the intellectual disability category, the report said.

“Many people would not or could not be sentenced to death today because of changes in the law and society’s understanding of the effects of mental illness and severe trauma,” Maher said.

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that the execution of people with intellectual disabilities was unconstitutional, holding that such punishment was cruel and unusual and, therefore, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. However, states were allowed to establish their own procedures for evaluating intellectual disability.

Now the nation’s highest court is considering how states should use IQ test scores to assess mental capacity. Disability rights groups say a narrow focus on IQ scores could lead to the execution of more people with intellectual disabilities.

Also this year, 10 veterans will have been executed – the highest number in almost two decades, according to the report. Last year, three veterans were executed.

This year’s figure includes Jeffrey Hutchinson, who was executed in May for the murders of his girlfriend Renee Flaherty and her three children in 1998. His lawyers argued that Hutchinson suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and head trauma while serving in the Gulf War.

For many veterans on death row, Maher said juries sentenced them to death with insufficient information about how they suffered physical or psychological injuries from their military service.

“The vulnerabilities and difficulties they faced as a result of their military service were not properly presented to the juries,” she added.

Death sentences and public support for the death penalty have trended downward

The number of new death sentences has fallen this year, continuing a decades-old downward trend. The report reveals that 22 people have already been sentenced to death in 2025. In 2005, the number was 139.

The new death sentences occurred in eight states: Florida, California, Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

Prosecutors are using the death penalty less frequently than two decades ago, the report said, because it tends to result in lengthy and costly trials. According to Maher, juries are also increasingly reluctant to impose death.

“What we see as consistent with the long-term trends we see over the last two decades is that the American public is moving away from the use of the death penalty,” she said.

According to its October poll, Gallup found that 52 percent of Americans favored the death penalty for someone convicted of murder – the lowest since 1972.