USA | Executions nearly double in 2025 due to dramatic rise in Florida

Executions in the U.S. nearly doubled in 2025 over the previous year as Florida executed more prisoners in a 12-month span than ever before, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The organization, which tracks capital punishment, released its year-end report on Monday. It showed a complicated picture: although public support for the death penalty remained at a low point, executions ticked upward.

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

According to the report, states have carried out 46 executions so far in 2025 — up from 25 in 2024. Two executions are scheduled in Georgia and Florida later this week, which will bring the total to 48, the highest in over 15 years.

Nineteen people — about 40% of the nation's total — were or will be executed in Florida this year. 

The dramatic increase coincides with the second term of President Trump, an avid supporter of the death penalty. Since his return to office, Trump has ordered the resumption of federal executions, which were paused by former President Joe Biden in 2021. The most recent federal executions took place during the last days of Trump's first term.

Florida is responsible for 40% of this year's executions nationwide

This year, Florida broke its record for the most executions carried out in a single year, which was previously eight in 2014.

At a press conference in November, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said executions in the state were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic but those issues have since been resolved. He said he owed it to victims' families to ensure the death penalty is carried out "smoothly and promptly."

"We've heard from a lot of the 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 wait and there's appeal and this and that," he said. "There's a saying, justice delayed is justice denied."

DeSantis said he also believes the death penalty could be a "strong deterrent" to crime. "My view is it's an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders," he added.

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

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

Among those executed were prisoners with PTSD and evidence of an intellectual disability

At least 40 death row prisoners that have been or will be executed this year had what the DPI described as "vulnerabilities," such as brain damage, a serious mental illness, severe childhood trauma or an IQ in the intellectually disabled range, the report said.

"Many 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 executing individuals with intellectual disabilities was unconstitutional, asserting that such punishment was cruel and unusual and therefore, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Still, states were allowed to establish their own procedures in assessing intellectual disability.

Now, the nation's highest court is considering how states should utilize IQ test results to evaluate mental capacity. Disability advocacy groups say a narrow focus on IQ scores could lead to executing more people with intellectual disabilities.

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

This year's figure included Jeffrey Hutchinson, who was put to death 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 a traumatic brain injury while serving in the Gulf War.

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

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

Death sentences and public support for the death penalty have been on a downward trend

The number of new death sentences dropped this year, continuing a decades-long downward trend. The report found that 22 people received a new death sentence so far in 2025. 

In 2005, that number was 139.

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

Prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty less frequently than two decades ago, the report said, because it tends to lead to expensive and lengthy cases. There's also a growing reluctance among jurors to impose death, according to Maher.

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"What we see as consistent with the long-term trends that we've been observing for the past couple of decades is that the American public is moving away from use of the death penalty," she said.

According to its October poll, Gallup found 52% of Americans were in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder — the lowest since 1972.

Source: npr.org, Juliana Kim, December 15, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde