Mid-Year Review 2025: New Death Sentences Remain Low Amidst Increase in Executions

At the mid­point of 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) offers this detailed analy­sis of the key facts and themes emerg­ing in the use of the death penal­ty across the U.S. For more than 30 years, DPI has been the pre­em­i­nent nation­al resource for time­ly and trust­wor­thy infor­ma­tion about the death penal­ty. Its care­ful track­ing and analy­sis of death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, leg­is­la­tion, and news­wor­thy events pro­vides crit­i­cal con­text to inform mean­ing­ful pub­lic debate and sound policy decisions.

I. This year’s increase in executions reflects the decisions of elected officials in a few states, not a change in public support, while the number of new death sentences remains low.  

The 25 exe­cu­tions car­ried out in the first six months of 2025 equal the total num­ber of exe­cu­tions for all of 2024. But this year’s exe­cu­tions are heav­i­ly geo­graph­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ed: 7 (28%) in Florida and 4 each (16%) in Texas and South Carolina, for a total of 60% of exe­cu­tions in just three states. People exe­cut­ed this year spent an aver­age of 24 years on death row, con­firm­ing once again that exe­cu­tions are a lag­ging indi­ca­tor of pub­lic sup­port; they were sen­tenced at a time when sup­port for the death penal­ty was much high­er than it is today and more zeal­ous pros­e­cu­tion poli­cies were in place. Public sup­port for the death penal­ty, last mea­sured in November 2024, is the low­est in 50 years (53%). 

New death sen­tences are down near­ly 30% com­pared to the same peri­od last year. Ten peo­ple in six states have been sen­tenced to death so far in 2025, mark­ing a decrease from last year’s pace of 14 new death sen­tences in the first half of 2024. These new death sen­tences reflect the deci­sions of today’s juries and are a cur­rent mea­sure of pub­lic sen­ti­ment on the death penal­ty. Both of Alabama’s new death sen­tences result­ed from non-unan­i­mous jury votes, with only 10 jurors vot­ing for death. Alabama and Florida are the only two states that allow non-unan­i­mous juries to impose sen­tences of death. 

President Trump’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order urged state pros­e­cu­tors to seek new death sen­tences for the 37 men whose fed­er­al death sen­tences were com­mut­ed to life with­out parole by President Biden. But only one per­son, Thomas Steven Sanders in Louisiana, faces new state cap­i­tal charges. Florida pros­e­cu­tors have also announced that they will reopen the case of Daniel Troya and Ricardo Sanchez, Jr., with the pos­si­bil­i­ty that they will seek new death sen­tences for the two men. But oth­er state pros­e­cu­tors have declined President Trump’s invi­ta­tion, cit­ing high costs and logis­ti­cal com­pli­ca­tions. In Missouri, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office announced it would not seek death sen­tences for two pris­on­ers, stat­ing ​“addi­tion­al charges at the state lev­el would not enhance pub­lic safe­ty in the St. Louis region,” and con­clud­ing that fur­ther pros­e­cu­tion ​“is not in the pub­lic inter­est.” In Texas, Tarrant County pros­e­cu­tors made a sim­i­lar deci­sion, say­ing, ​“We have dis­cussed the facts and cir­cum­stances of Julius Robinson’s case with both for­mer and cur­rent fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors famil­iar with the case. This case is not viable for a cap­i­tal murder prosecution.” 

II. Increased secrecy denies the public critical information about execution decisions.  

Every state that has car­ried out exe­cu­tions in 2025 has a secre­cy law or pol­i­cy block­ing the pub­lic from learn­ing crit­i­cal details about how their elect­ed offi­cials use their tax­pay­er dol­lars and perform executions. 

Florida, which has car­ried out the most exe­cu­tions in 2025 (7), pro­vides no pub­lic infor­ma­tion about how pris­on­ers are select­ed for exe­cu­tion. Florida’s clemen­cy process is also shroud­ed in com­plete secre­cy. No death row pris­on­er in Florida has been grant­ed clemen­cy since 1983. 

Indiana, which exe­cut­ed Benjamin Ritchie on May 20, is an out­lier in the way it bars any media wit­ness­es from observ­ing exe­cu­tions. Steve Schutte, an attor­ney for Mr. Ritchie, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle that Mr. Ritchie made what appeared to be ​“vio­lent” move­ments, lift­ing his head and shoul­ders abrupt­ly from the gur­ney soon after it is believed the drugs began to flow. Two addi­tion­al wit­ness­es at Mr. Ritchie’s exe­cu­tion cor­rob­o­rat­ed Mr. Schutte’s account. But an Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) spokesper­son dis­put­ed these obser­va­tions, telling the Capital Chronicle that Mr. Schutte’s account ​“is not an accu­rate descrip­tion of the cir­cum­stances” and main­tain­ing that Mr. Ritchie’s ​“exe­cu­tion was com­plet­ed accord­ing to pro­to­col.” These con­flict­ing accounts under­score the val­ue of hav­ing media wit­ness­es avail­able to pro­vide inde­pen­dent accounts of executions. 

The impor­tance of media access to exe­cu­tions and offi­cial records was also high­light­ed when a botched fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion in South Carolina was only revealed to the pub­lic after Mikal Mahdi’s attor­neys shared autop­sy infor­ma­tion with the press. Pathologists report­ed that not only did Mr. Mahdi have two wounds as opposed to the antic­i­pat­ed three wounds from three South Carolina Corrections Department (SCDC) shoot­ers, but also that they missed the intend­ed tar­get over his heart, pro­long­ing his death. 

III. The death penalty remains extremely expensive, but almost all costs are routinely hidden from the public. 

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun revealed in June that the state spent $1.175 mil­lion on drugs for two exe­cu­tions, near­ly half of which ($600,000 worth) expired before they could be used. Gov. Braun indi­cat­ed that he does not intend to pur­chase more drugs, say­ing, ​“I think, $300,000 a pop that has a 90-day shelf life — I’m not going to be putting it on the shelf and then let­ting them expire.” His com­ments came after the Indiana Capital Chronicle report­ed that the state had spent over $900,000 on exe­cu­tion drugs. The Capital Chronicle was only able to obtain records of exe­cu­tion costs after fil­ing a law­suit against the Indiana Department of Corrections. 

In court fil­ings, Idaho offi­cials revealed that the state spent $200,000 on exe­cu­tion drugs that expired before use, and the cre­ation of a new facil­i­ty for fir­ing squad exe­cu­tions is expect­ed to cost over $1 million. 

Records obtained by The Tennessean showed that Tennessee spent $600,000 on exe­cu­tion drugs between 2017 and 2025. Tennessee per­formed two lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions dur­ing that period. 

A Wyandotte County, Kansas judge found that ​“the death penal­ty is more cost­ly than any oth­er pun­ish­ment in every state exam­ined includ­ing Kansas” and not­ed that ​“ini­tial tri­al costs alone are approx­i­mate­ly $226,000 more per case when the death penal­ty is sought[.]” Wyandotte County alone, Judge Klapper not­ed, has ​“incurred $4,289,022 in addi­tion­al cost for cap­i­tal cas­es from 1994 to present.”

IV. State legislation to expand the death penalty and adopt new methods is concentrated in a minority of states.

Florida, which has car­ried out more exe­cu­tions this year than any oth­er state, also enact­ed the most death penal­ty leg­is­la­tion. Florida law­mak­ers enact­ed five death penal­ty bills, all intend­ed to expand the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. One new law allows Florida to use any exe­cu­tion method ​“not deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.” Since the U.S. Supreme Court has nev­er found a method of exe­cu­tion to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, the new law will per­mit almost any method cho­sen by state offi­cials. The oth­er laws include pro­vi­sions to add new aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances, a manda­to­ry death sen­tence for ​“unau­tho­rized aliens” con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal crimes, and new cap­i­tal offens­es. The Supreme Court declared manda­to­ry death sen­tences uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 1976. 

Two states, Arkansas and Idaho, enact­ed changes to their exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols. Arkansas adopt­ed nitro­gen asphyx­i­a­tion as an exe­cu­tion method. An Arkansas offi­cial will be sole­ly respon­si­ble for deter­min­ing whether pris­on­ers will be exe­cut­ed by nitro­gen gas or lethal injec­tion. Idaho adopt­ed leg­is­la­tion that will make the fir­ing squad its pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion, and lethal injec­tion a secondary option. 

Idaho and Oklahoma made sex­u­al assaults of chil­dren death-eli­gi­ble offens­es, join­ing Florida and Tennessee as the only states that per­mit the death penal­ty for non-homi­cide crimes in defi­ance of U.S. Supreme Court prece­dent. To date, no one has been sen­tenced to death under any of these new laws. Louisiana also added a new aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance, for the mur­der of a ​“per­son with infirmities.” 

Two states adopt­ed bills chang­ing their death penal­ty pro­ce­dures. Georgia revised its much-crit­i­cized evi­den­tiary stan­dard for deter­min­ing when a per­son has an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, bring­ing it in line with oth­er death penal­ty states. Oklahoma mod­i­fied its process for deter­min­ing com­pe­ten­cy for exe­cu­tion, requir­ing tri­al courts to ren­der deci­sions before the execution date. 

V.  Executions and new death sentences demonstrate persistent concerns about racial disparities. 

Only one of the 25 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in the first half of 2025 was exe­cut­ed for killing a per­son of col­or: Demetrius Frazier, a Black man exe­cut­ed in Alabama for the mur­der of a Black woman. The oth­er 24 peo­ple exe­cut­ed were con­vict­ed of killing a total of 32 white vic­tims. White vic­tims there­fore made up 96.7% of the vic­tims in the crimes that result­ed in exe­cu­tions in 2025. Across all exe­cu­tions since 1976, 75% of vic­tims in the under­ly­ing crimes are white. Seven of the 25 peo­ple exe­cut­ed (28%) were peo­ple of col­or. One was mixed race, and the rest were white. 

The new death sen­tences imposed this year show even greater racial dis­par­i­ties. Eight of the ten peo­ple sen­tenced to death (80%) are peo­ple of color. 

Eight addi­tion­al exe­cu­tion dates are cur­rent­ly sched­uled to occur before the end of this year. DPI’s 2025 Year End Report will cov­er these and the oth­er death penal­ty relat­ed issues in December.