Executions

Forty-sev­en peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in 2025, a depar­ture from a decade-long trend of few­er than 30 exe­cu­tions per year. The rise in exe­cu­tions was dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by the state of Florida, which car­ried out 19 exe­cu­tions, 40% of the year’s total. If Florida had exe­cut­ed the same num­ber of peo­ple as it did in 2024, this year’s total num­ber would not look very dif­fer­ent from past years. Outside of Florida, 28 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in ten states in 2025, sim­i­lar to 2024 (25 exe­cu­tions in nine states).

Florida’s out­lier sta­tus this year is extreme even in his­tor­i­cal con­text. The only state that has ever exceed­ed 18 exe­cu­tions in a sin­gle year is Texas, which last did so in 2009. In 2001, Oklahoma car­ried out 18 exe­cu­tions, its high­est sin­­gle-year total. Virginia, which ranked third by num­ber of exe­cu­tions before repeal­ing the death penal­ty in 2021, car­ried out a max­i­mum of 14 exe­cu­tions in 1999. Those three states, and the nation as a whole, used the death penal­ty most fre­quent­ly in the late 1990s to ear­ly 2000s — a time peri­od when pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty was at its peak amidst nation­wide con­cerns about ris­ing crime rates, ​“tough on crime” polit­i­cal rhetoric, and harsh prosecutorial policies.

Four states (Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Utah) car­ried out exe­cu­tions this year, but had no cap­i­tal tri­als and no new death sen­tences. All of the exe­cu­tions this year in these states were based on con­vic­tions from many years ago, at a time when pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty was much high­er. In two of these states, Louisiana and Utah, polling sug­gests wan­ing sup­port for use of the death penal­ty. For exam­ple, a 2022 sur­vey by the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs at Louisiana State University found just half (51%) of respon­dents favor the death penal­ty, rep­re­sent­ing a sev­en-per­­cen­t­age point drop from 2018. A 2021 poll found that 40% of Utah adults sup­port elim­i­nat­ing the death penal­ty as a sen­tenc­ing option, and a 2017 poll found 64% of Utahns pre­fer alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty for peo­ple con­vict­ed of murder. 

Most Executions Involve Defendants with Significant Vulnerabilities

While the death penal­ty is intend­ed to be reserved for the ​“worst of the worst” offend­ers, the vast major­i­ty (83%) of those exe­cut­ed in 2025 had at least one of the fol­low­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties: seri­ous men­tal ill­ness (27); low IQ, brain dam­age, or evi­dence of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty (25); and/​or sig­nif­i­cant child­hood trau­ma, neglect, or abuse (28). A total of at least 39 pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed this year had one or more of those factors.

Intellectual Disability

Tennessee pris­on­er Byron Black, who was exe­cut­ed on August 5, was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled – a con­di­tion that should have made him inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. Despite the agree­ment of every expert who exam­ined him and the Davidson County District Attorney that he should not be exe­cut­ed, courts allowed Mr. Black’s exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed because of a pro­ce­dur­al legal bar­ri­er that pre­vent­ed a new hear­ing on his intellectual disability. 

Changing state stan­dards, pro­ce­dur­al legal bar­ri­ers, and unfor­tu­nate tim­ing con­tributed to the exe­cu­tion of two peo­ple in Florida who may also have been intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. David Pittman, who was exe­cut­ed on September 17, had trou­ble read­ing basic words and con­sis­tent­ly scored low on IQ tests. At his 1991 tri­al, no evi­dence of his dis­abil­i­ty was pre­sent­ed because the law did not pre­vent the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty at that time. A non-unan­i­­mous (9 – 3) jury sen­tenced him to death. After the 2002 rul­ing in Atkins v. Virginia that found the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and the 2014 rul­ing in Hall v. Florida that end­ed the use of strict IQ cut­offs, Mr. Pittman sought relief from his death sen­tence in court. A 2020 Florida Supreme Court rul­ing said Hall could not be applied retroac­tive­ly, block­ing Mr. Pittman from hav­ing his claims heard.

Less than two weeks after Mr. Pittman’s exe­cu­tion, on September 30, Florida exe­cut­ed Victor Jones, who had been denied relief before the Hall rul­ing because he had scored above the state’s IQ cut­off of 70. After Hall, he also sought relief but was denied on the basis of tes­ti­mo­ny from his ear­li­er hear­ing, even though that pri­or tes­ti­mo­ny had relied on out­dat­ed med­ical stan­dards. Mr. Jones had also devel­oped Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the phys­i­cal abuse, sex­u­al abuse, and neglect he expe­ri­enced at the hands of state employ­ees at the Okeechobee School for Boys. Evidence of his mis­treat­ment at the state-run facil­i­ty was nev­er pre­sent­ed to the jury. Governor DeSantis signed Mr. Jones’ exe­cu­tion war­rant less than eight months after sign­ing a bill that autho­rizes $20 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for indi­vid­u­als who were sent to Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys and Okeechobee between 1940 and 1975 and who suf­fered from men­tal, phys­i­cal, or sex­u­al abuse at the hands of state-employed offi­cials. By sign­ing this leg­is­la­tion, Governor DeSantis acknowl­edged the wrong­do­ing of the state and trau­mat­ic effects of both Dozier and Okeechobee. An inves­ti­ga­tion by The Marshall Project found that at least 34 for­mer res­i­dents of Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys were even­tu­al­ly sen­tenced to death in Florida.

Youth

Eight peo­ple exe­cut­ed in 2025 were under the age of 21 at the time of their crime. As explained in DPI​’s April 2025 report, ​“Immature Minds in a ​‘Maturing Society’: Roper v. Simmons at 20,” experts now agree that brain devel­op­ment con­tin­ues into a person’s 20s, and many peo­ple under 21 have the same deficits in impulse con­trol and risk assess­ment as those under 18.

Non-Unanimous Juries

Thirteen peo­ple exe­cut­ed this year were sen­tenced to death by non-unan­i­­mous juries, a prac­tice that is now banned in all but two states (Alabama and Florida). Edward Zakrzewski, who was sen­tenced to death in 1996, received a 7 – 5 jury vote in favor of death, which today would result in a life sen­tence in every state.

Time on Death Row

The peo­ple exe­cut­ed this year spent an aver­age of 27 years on death row under sen­tence of death, mean­ing they were sen­tenced at a time when pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty was high­er, defense rep­re­sen­ta­tion qual­i­ty and avail­abil­i­ty was low­er, and jurors under­stood much less about the effects of men­tal ill­ness, trau­ma, and oth­er mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors. It is also true that many of these pris­on­ers would not be sen­tenced to death by juries today — or even eli­gi­ble for a death sen­tence — because of changes in the law that have occurred in the intervening decades.

Veterans

An unusu­al­ly high num­ber of mil­i­tary vet­er­ans were exe­cut­ed this year. Ten vet­er­ans were exe­cut­ed in 2025, sev­en of them in Florida. In many of these cas­es, jurors did not hear mean­ing­ful evi­dence about how the defen­dants’ mil­i­tary ser­vice had affect­ed them. As Florida pre­pared to exe­cute men­tal­ly ill Army vet­er­an Jeffrey Hutchinson, a group of fel­low vet­er­ans urged Governor DeSantis to halt the exe­cu­tion. Mr. Hutchinson served in the Gulf War and was lat­er diag­nosed with Gulf War Illness. In their let­ter, the vet­er­ans wrote, “[Mr. Hutchinson’s] mind was a casu­al­ty, just like any limb lost in com­bat. To exe­cute him now is not jus­tice. It is a fail­ure of respon­si­bil­i­ty. It is the final aban­don­ment of some­one our coun­try broke and then left behind.”

Execution Methods & Secrecy Continue to Create Controversy

Louisiana exe­cut­ed Jessie Hoffman in March, end­ing a 15-year exe­cu­tion hia­tus and becom­ing the sec­ond state to use nitro­gen gas as an exe­cu­tion method. Alabama, which used nitro­gen gas for the first time in 2024, has now exe­cut­ed sev­en peo­ple using this method. State offi­cials acknowl­edged that Mr. Hoffman exhibited ​“con­vul­sive activ­i­ty” as he was forced to inhale pure nitro­gen gas through a face mask while strapped to a gur­ney, but Louisiana Corrections Secretary Gary Westcott nonethe­less char­ac­ter­ized the execution as ​“flaw­less.” Media wit­ness­es who attend­ed the exe­cu­tion not­ed twitch­es, clenched hands, and jerk­ing through­out the process, sim­i­lar to obser­va­tions made by media wit­ness­es who attend­ed nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tions in Alabama.

South Carolina exe­cut­ed three peo­ple by fir­ing squad this year, mark­ing the first time since 2010 that any state had used that method. An autop­sy report from the exe­cu­tion of Mikal Mahdi revealed that the exe­cu­tion was botched. Though three shots were sup­posed to be fired, Mr. Mahdi had only two bul­let wounds. Neither bul­let struck the intend­ed tar­get over his heart, pro­long­ing his death. 

South Carolina requires death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers to select their method of exe­cu­tion, char­ac­ter­iz­ing the deci­sion as a ​“choice.” Attorneys for Brad Sigmon chal­lenged this prac­tice in court, say­ing that the state’s secre­cy sur­round­ing its exe­cu­tion meth­ods made the deci­sion unin­formed and impos­si­ble. An autop­sy of Marion Bowman, who was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion in January, indi­cat­ed he had received twice the intend­ed dose of exe­cu­tion drugs and had expe­ri­enced pul­monary ede­ma dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. Gerald ​“Bo” King, an attor­ney for Mr. Sigmon, said in a statement, ​“Brad Sigmon has repeat­ed­ly asked for the basic facts need­ed to deter­mine if South Carolina’s drugs are expired, dilut­ed, or spoiled. He has thus far been denied. He chose the fir­ing squad because he was unwill­ing to risk the pro­longed, tor­tur­ous death that he fears his friends endured. Mr. Bowman’s autop­sy con­firms that those fears were jus­ti­fied.” The results of Mr. Bowman and Mr. Mahdi’s exe­cu­tions indi­cate that both exe­cu­tion meth­ods used in South Carolina this year car­ry the risk that they will be botched.

On August 5, Tennessee exe­cut­ed Byron Black by lethal injec­tion. During his exe­cu­tion, Mr. Black unex­pect­ed­ly and repeat­ed­ly groaned over the course of sev­er­al min­utes and audi­bly told his spir­i­tu­al advi­sor that he was in pain. His implant­ed heart device, which remained con­nect­ed despite the request of his lawyers, showed that his heart con­tin­ued beat­ing for more than two min­utes after he was declared dead by prison staff. An autop­sy released September 10, 2025, found evidence of ​“pul­monary con­ges­tion and ede­ma”– defined as an abnor­mal buildup of flu­id in the lungs which can pro­duce sensations of ​“doom, pan­ic, drown­ing, and asphyx­i­a­tion.” A 2020 NPR analy­sis of more than 200 autop­sies of peo­ple exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion found that pul­monary ede­ma occurred in 84%. Despite the claims of state experts that Mr. Black would be uncon­scious with­in 20 sec­onds, exe­cu­tion wit­ness­es report­ed that he was still awake and groan­ing more than five min­utes into the exe­cu­tion, saying, ​“It’s hurt­ing so bad.”

Race

Fifteen of the 47 peo­ple (32%) exe­cut­ed this year were peo­ple of col­or – 13 were Black, one Latino, and one mixed race. 

Race-of-vic­­tim bias was again evi­dent in this year’s data. Just sev­en (15%) of the cas­es that result­ed in exe­cu­tion this year involved any vic­tims of col­or. In all cas­es that have result­ed in exe­cu­tion since 1972, about 25% of the under­ly­ing vic­tims were peo­ple of col­or. Two white peo­ple exe­cut­ed this year were exe­cut­ed for killing peo­ple of col­or, while nine peo­ple of col­or were exe­cut­ed for killing white peo­ple. In two cas­es, the race of the victim(s) is unknown.

Table of Executions