A cluster of executions is “not that unusual,” according to Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project. “But it’s become increasingly rare as use of the death penalty has diminished.”
Indeed, the number of executions each year remains far lower than its peak in 1999, when nearly 100 people were put to death nationwide. That figure steadily decreased until the Covid-19 pandemic, when it reached historic lows, Dunham said.
But executions are up in the first half of 2025 compared to recent years. In addition to this week’s, two more are scheduled later in June. If all six proceed as planned, it would mark 25 executions this year to date, matching the total number of executions carried out in 2024, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center. That would be the highest number of executions carried out through June since 2011.
One reason for the rise is the renewed interest in executions in states that have not carried them out for years, experts said. Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee have all resumed executions in 2025 after hiatuses. South Carolina and Indiana did the same in 2024.
The states are acting independently. But their moves come as Trump has signaled a desire to see capital punishment used more often at the federal level, saying he wants to deter criminals and protect the American people. While his day one executive order, “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,” does not apply to the states, experts said the message it sends could encourage state officials who want to align themselves with the president.
“If a state is inclined to conduct executions anyway, Trump’s rhetoric would be the wind behind them pushing them to do that,” said Corinna Lain, a University of Richmond law professor and author of “Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection.”
The executive order also has an overt connection to a case this week: an Oklahoma execution is moving forward because Attorney General Pam Bondi, citing Trump’s executive order, approved a transfer of the inmate from federal custody to the state – a request the Biden administration previously denied.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
Matt Wells, deputy director of Reprieve US, an organization that opposes the death penalty, called this a “dark time in US capital punishment.” Aside from the resumption of executions in some states, he pointed to states’ issues with lethal injection and the advent of alternative execution methods, like nitrogen gas, and the resumption of executions in states that have not put anyone to death in years.
“Yet through his executive order on the death penalty,” Wells said, “President Trump has sent a strong signal to states to push forward with executions.”
Here’s what we know about the four inmates facing execution this week:
Gregory Hunt
Alabama became the first state to ever use the method in the execution of Kenneth Smith, which took about 15 minutes to complete.
Hunt’s execution would be the fifth by nitrogen hypoxia in the state, and the second execution by nitrogen hypoxia this year, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey’s office.
Hunt’s execution would be the fifth by nitrogen hypoxia in the state, and the second execution by nitrogen hypoxia this year, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey’s office.
Hunt – one of the 156 people on death row in the state – killed Karen Lane in the early hours of August 2, 1988, according to court documents. The two had been dating for about a month prior to her death.
Lane was found with 60 injuries to her body, including lacerations and bruises to her head, body and organs, documents say. She also had a dozen fractured ribs, a fractured breastbone and evidence suggested she had been sexually assaulted.
Hunt is representing himself in court, according to a spokesperson with the Alabama Attorney General’s office.
Anthony Wainwright
The two escapees stole a green Cadillac and burglarized weapons from a home before driving to Lake City, Florida, according to court documents. While in Lake City, the pair stole another car because the Cadillac was starting to overheat, documents say.
The pair drove into a supermarket parking lot and spotted Carmen Gayheart, who was loading groceries into a Ford Bronco. They decided to take her car – first forcing her to get inside it at gunpoint – and drove to a wooded area where they “raped, strangled, and executed” her with one of the stolen guns, court documents say.
CNN has reached out to an attorney for Wainwright for comment. Wainwright’s co-conspirator died in 2023, according to The Florida Department of Corrections.
Wainwright is expected to be executed via lethal injection Tuesday.
Gayheart’s sister, Maria David, who attended every day of Wainwright’s original trial, said the victim was a devoted mother of two who was beautiful inside and out.
“She loved those kids like nothing else, devoted wife. She was going to be an incredible nurse had she been left to live for the rest of her life,” David said.
David, who also runs a Facebook page in her sister’s honor, said she will be in attendance for Wainwright’s execution, as will other family members.
“This is just going to be closure for the legal aspect of Carmen’s case,” David said. “It doesn’t bring closure for me, and I don’t think any member of my family, by any means, because we’re always going to live with the loss of Carmen.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed seven death warrants in the first half of 2025, according to his office – if the two executions scheduled for June go forward, that would be just one short of the state’s record of eight executions in a single year since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
John Hanson
According to prosecutors, Hanson and his co-defendant, Victor Miller, carjacked and kidnapped Bowles at a Tulsa mall, then drove her to a “dirt pit” outside the city. There, prosecutors say, Hanson’s co-defendant shot the man who owned the pit, Jerald Thurman, and Hanson fatally shot the 77-year-old woman.
Hanson’s attorneys contest this: They say there is evidence Miller was Bowles’ true killer, having confessed to pulling the trigger while in prison. Additionally, Miller is now serving a life sentence after his death sentence was overturned – a glaring sentencing disparity given he is, according to Hanson’s attorneys, more culpable than their client.
They also argue that federal law was misinterpreted to facilitate Hanson’s execution.
While he has a death sentence in Oklahoma, Hanson has also been serving a federal life sentence for a robbery. Three years ago, Oklahoma officials asked the Bureau of Prisons to transfer Hanson to state custody so his execution could be carried out. The agency – then under the stewardship of the Biden administration – said no; it would not be in the “public interest” because he hadn’t completed his federal sentence.
Oklahoma officials made the request again earlier this year, three days after Trump took office. This time, the administration – specifically Attorney General Pam Bondi – said yes, court records show. The transfer, she found, would comply with the executive order Trump signed on his first day in office, “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,” and promote “state and federal cooperation on capital crimes.”
Hanson is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections told CNN.
Bowles’ family has voiced support for the execution to move forward. Her niece, Sara Parker Mooney, remembered her aunt, a lifelong Tulsa resident, as an active member of her community and a mentor to professional women: “She was the matriarch of our family. She was truly beloved.”
“Mary’s murder was indescribably difficult then, and it still is now,” she wrote. “We have been worn out by the multiple trials, re-trials, and appeals. We find ourselves disappointed and angry with the machinations of the judicial system and the political aspects of the last years. We are ready to be done with this matter.”
Stephen Stanko
Stanko’s execution warrant is tied to Turner’s murder, because the inmate had exhausted his appeals in that case, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said in a notice announcing his execution date.
On April 7, 2005, Stanko murdered Ling, his girlfriend, the notice says. He also raped her daughter, who was at a minor at the time, and slit her throat – though she survived. Afterwards, Stanko went to Turner’s home, where he shot and killed the 74-year-old before stealing his truck and fleeing. Stanko was arrested days later.
Henry Turner’s son remembered his father as a “helper,” who was willing to lend a hand to anyone, including the man who killed him. “He was my best friend,” said Roger Turner.
While Roger supports Stanko’s execution, he told CNN he had forgiven the inmate for murdering his father. But he wishes the execution had taken place sooner, lamenting the two-decade cycle of appeals that would periodically reignite interest in Stanko’s case – and force him to revisit his father’s killing time and again.
“Here it is, 20 years later, and I’m still reliving it. I’m still hearing the guy’s name,” said Roger Turner. He intends to attend the execution.
Should it move ahead, Stanko will be executed by lethal injection, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Corrections told CNN. South Carolina inmates can choose their method of execution, with the electric chair and the firing squad as the other available options.
CNN has reached out to Ling’s daughter and Stanko’s attorney for comment.
Source: CNN, Dakin Andone, Michelle Watson, June 9, 2025
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
Comments
Post a Comment
Pro-DP comments will not be published.