Legislation

In 2025, law­mak­ers across 36 states and in Congress intro­duced at least 150 death penal­­ty-relat­ed bills, mark­ing a three­fold increase from 2024. Even exclud­ing Texas, whose leg­is­la­ture has odd-num­bered year ses­sions, there was still a near­ly 180% year-over-year increase in the num­ber of death penal­­ty-relat­ed bills intro­duced nation­wide. Despite the increase in leg­is­la­tion, how­ev­er, very few bills became law. This year, just 17 bills were enact­ed across eight states.¹ Still, this num­ber is near­ly dou­ble the num­ber of bills enact­ed in 2024. Death penal­ty abo­li­tion efforts also con­tin­ued in a dozen death penal­ty states, and 2025 saw failed efforts to rein­state the death penal­ty in ten states where it is currently illegal. 

Florida enact­ed the high­est num­ber of death penal­­ty-relat­ed leg­is­la­tion, with five bills becom­ing law; four of the five pro­vi­sions were passed dur­ing the state’s reg­u­lar leg­isla­tive ses­sion. Republican leg­is­la­tors spon­sored the major­i­ty of enact­ed leg­is­la­tion, which includ­ed the fol­low­ing: five pro­vi­sions mod­i­fy­ing exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols; four expand­ing death eli­gi­bil­i­ty; three mod­i­fy­ing the appeals process; two expand­ing aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances; one mak­ing death sen­tences manda­to­ry; one mod­i­fy­ing the process and low­er­ing the legal stan­dard for intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claims; and one mod­i­fy­ing the process for deter­min­ing men­tal com­pe­ten­cy for execution.

Enacted Death Penalty Related Legislation

Legislation to Modify Execution Protocols, Including Increased Secrecy Provisions

States are increas­ing­ly propos­ing changes to exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols. Five states (Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, and North Carolina) enact­ed leg­is­la­tion to mod­i­fy their exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols, includ­ing bills to add new, large­ly untest­ed exe­cu­tion meth­ods and rein­tro­duce pre­vi­ous­ly aban­doned meth­ods. Nineteen bills to mod­i­fy or aug­ment exe­cu­tion meth­ods were intro­duced in 14 states, which either failed to be enact­ed or remain pending. 

Nitrogen Gas 

Arkansas Representatives Jeff Wardlaw (R) and Blake Johnson (R) intro­duced HB 1489, which adds suf­fo­ca­tion by nitro­gen gas as an exe­cu­tion method, on March 18, 2025. The bill passed both cham­bers of the state leg­is­la­ture by wide mar­gins. Arkansas now joins Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi as the fourth state to adopt this exe­cu­tion method. Arkansas Act 302, which became law on August 5, 2025, was prompt­ly met with a law­suit from a group of 10 death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers, who argue the new law vio­lates the state constitution’s sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers. Both Alabama and Louisiana have used nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions over the past year, with wit­ness­es report­ing seri­ous anom­alies dur­ing the exe­cu­tions, includ­ing signs of pain and dis­tress from the prisoners. 

Lawmakers in both Nebraska (LB 432) and Ohio (HB 36) also intro­duced bills to autho­rize using nitro­gen gas as an exe­cu­tion method, but both bills remain pending.

Firing Squad 

Idaho Representative Bruce Skaug (R) spon­sored HB 37, which was signed into law on March 12, 2025, mak­ing fir­ing squad the state’s pri­ma­ry exe­cu­tion method. The new law, which doesn’t take effect until July 1, 2026, passed by wide mar­gins in both cham­bers: 58 to 11 in the House and 28 to 7 in the Senate. Although five states now allow exe­cu­tions by fir­ing squad (Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah), this law makes Idaho the only state to autho­rize it as its pri­ma­ry, default execution method. 

On March 7, 2025, the U.S. had its first fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion in fif­teen years with South Carolina’s exe­cu­tion of Brad Sigmon. His lawyer, who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion, report­ed seri­ous con­cerns about how the new pro­ce­dure was used. South Carolina sub­se­quent­ly used a fir­ing squad on April 11 to exe­cute Mikal Mahdi. Mr. Mahdi’s lawyers lat­er made pub­lic the autop­sy report that not­ed two bul­let wounds instead of three, both of which missed Mr. Mahdi’s heart, sug­gest­ing his exe­cu­tion was botched. In total, South Carolina car­ried out the nation’s three fir­ing squad exe­cu­tions this year — the most in a sin­gle year since 1976. 

Unusually, Indiana start­ed their 2026 leg­isla­tive ses­sion a month ear­ly due to calls to con­sid­er new con­gres­sion­al maps and tax codes. Introduced by Senator Michael Young (R) on December 8, 2025, SB 11 would allow fir­ing squad to be used if lethal injec­tion drugs are unavail­able or if the pris­on­er specif­i­cal­ly requests it. 

New Drugs and Pharmaceutical Companies 

Tennessee law­mak­ers intro­duced bills (SB 0491 /​HB 1022) seek­ing to add phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal fen­tanyl as an exe­cu­tion drug. The leg­is­la­tion remains pending. 

In Montana, Representative Shannon Maness (R) intro­duced HB 205 to mod­i­fy the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col to allow for an ​“intra­venous injec­tion of a sub­stance or sub­stances in a lethal quan­ti­ty” that is ​“suf­fi­cient to cause death.” The state’s cur­rent pro­to­col is more spe­cif­ic and requires the ​“admin­is­tra­tion of a con­tin­u­ous intra­venous injec­tion of a lethal quan­ti­ty of an ultra-fast-act­ing bar­bi­tu­rate in com­bi­na­tion with a chem­i­cal par­a­lyt­ic agent.” HB 205 failed to pass in the House by a small margin. 

Unique bills in Connecticut and Delaware — both states with­out the death penal­ty — sought to place restric­tions on phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies incor­po­rat­ed in their states whose drugs or equip­ment may be used in exe­cu­tions. First intro­duced as SB 430, and lat­er rolled into SB 1355, the Connecticut bill sought to pro­hib­it per­sons who are licensed, reg­is­tered or doing busi­ness in this state from man­u­fac­tur­ing, com­pound­ing, sell­ing, test­ing, dis­trib­ut­ing, dis­pens­ing, or sup­ply­ing any drug or med­ical device for the pur­pose of exe­cut­ing the death penal­ty. On May 20, 2025, SB 1355 passed the Senate with a vote of 24 to 11, but it failed to receive a vote in the House before the session closed. 

Delaware’s HB 61 has sim­i­lar pro­hi­bi­tions but goes fur­ther to cre­ate crim­i­nal, in addi­tion to civ­il, lia­bil­i­ties for cor­po­ra­tions or oth­er busi­ness­es in the state that vio­late the pro­vi­sions. For exam­ple, HB 61 pro­pos­es that if the high­­est-rank­ing offi­cer of an entity that ​“knew or should have known” that the firm’s prod­ucts would be used ​“in any capac­i­ty” in an exe­cu­tion, then the firm’s char­ter will be revoked and that offi­cer will be guilty of a class A felony and sub­ject to a civ­il penal­ty of up to $50,000. HB 61 was last assigned to the House Judiciary Committee on March 6, 2025. It may be tak­en up again in January 2026, when Delaware’s two-year leg­isla­tive session resumes. 

​“A Method Not Deemed Unconstitutional” 

Florida’s HB 903 autho­rizes the state to use ​“a method not deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al” if lethal injec­tion and elec­tro­cu­tion are unavail­able for a vari­ety of rea­sons. It was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis on May 22, 2025, and went into effect July 1, 2025. In explain­ing his rea­son­ing for spon­sor­ing the bill, Representative Berny Jacques (R) com­plained, despite the record high num­ber of exe­cu­tions in Florida this year, that ​“weak sen­tenc­ing guide­lines and bureau­crat­ic inef­fi­cien­cies have allowed vio­lent offend­ers to escape real con­se­quences.” Advocates have expressed con­cerns that this new provision ​“green­lights experimental executions.” 

Lawmakers in North Carolina approved sweep­ing changes to their crim­i­nal laws, includ­ing changes to the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col that echo HB 903 in Florida. Sponsored by Representative Sarah Stevens (R), HB 307, also known as ​“Iryna’s Law,” retains lethal injec­tion as the state’s pri­ma­ry method of choice but removes the cur­rent pro­hi­bi­tion against elec­tro­cu­tion and lethal gas as exe­cu­tion meth­ods. If lethal injec­tion is deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, the state may now use an exe­cu­tion method approved by anoth­er state, so long as the U.S. Supreme Court has not declared that method to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The U.S. Supreme Court has nev­er found a method of exe­cu­tion to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. On October 3, 2025, Governor Josh Stein signed HB 307, which went into effect on December 1, 2025. 

Secrecy and Transparency 

Arkansas HB 1489 expands exist­ing secre­cy pro­vi­sions to pre­vent pub­lic dis­clo­sure of infor­ma­tion about the indi­vid­u­als involved in nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tions or the sup­pli­ers of the gas, chem­i­cals, and equip­ment used in the exe­cu­tion. It became effec­tive August 5, 2025. Ohio’s bill HB 36 also now pro­hibits the pub­lic disclosure of ​“exe­cu­tion identifying information.” 

Louisiana Representative Nicholas Muscarello, Jr. (R) spon­sored HB 394, which removes the min­i­mum and max­i­mum number of ​“oth­er” exe­cu­tion wit­ness­es allowed, instead leav­ing that deter­mi­na­tion to the sec­re­tary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections. Governor Jeff Landry signed the bill on June 8, 2025, and it became effective immediately. 

Texas bill SB 1690, which would require the state to main­tain records and report annu­al­ly on the drugs stocked by the state to use in exe­cu­tions, includ­ing expi­ra­tion dates, remains pending. 

Other states pro­posed chang­ing the iden­ti­ty of the wit­ness­es who may be present at exe­cu­tions to include, for exam­ple, mem­bers of the leg­is­la­ture (HB 198 /​SB 1214 in Tennessee), the state attor­ney gen­er­al (S 0267, S 0308, H 3852 in South Carolina), or a legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the per­son sen­tenced to death (HB 207 in Louisiana). None of these pro­vi­sions have been enacted. 

Legislation to Reinstate or Expand Use of the Death Penalty, Including for Non-Homicide Crimes 

Bills to rein­state the death penal­ty were intro­duced in ten states in 2025, and bills seek­ing to expand use of the death penal­ty were intro­duced in 11 states and in Congress. Three states (Arkansas, Idaho, and Oklahoma) enact­ed leg­is­la­tion to expand death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty to include per­sons con­vict­ed of non-lethal sex-relat­ed crimes, despite being direct­ly con­trary to con­trol­ling Supreme Court prece­dent. These three states join Florida, which was the first to enact such leg­is­la­tion in 2023, and Tennessee, which enact­ed sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion in 2024. This year, law­mak­ers in Florida also enact­ed leg­is­la­tion to cre­ate the offense of cap­i­tal sex trafficking. 

Sex Crimes Against Children as Capital Offenses 

In Arkansas, Senator Jeremiah Moore (R) intro­duced SB 375, which cre­ates the offense of cap­i­tal rape. Capital rape is defined as ​“sex­u­al inter­course or devi­ate sex­u­al activ­i­ty” with a child age 13 or younger. The bill passed with wide mar­gins in both cham­bers. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed the bill on April 16, 2025, and it became law on August 5, 2025. 

In Idaho, Representative Bruce Skaug (R) intro­duced HB 380, which specif­i­cal­ly makes aggra­vat­ed lewd con­duct with a minor child age 12 or under a death-eli­gi­ble offense. The bill passed unan­i­mous­ly in the House and near­ly unan­i­mous­ly in the Senate. Governor Brad Little signed the bill on March 26, 2025, and it became law on July 1, 2025. 

In Oklahoma, Representative Warren Hamilton (R) intro­duced SB 599, which specifically makes ​“any per­son con­vict­ed of forcible anal or oral sodomy, rape, rape by instru­men­ta­tion, or lewd molesta­tion of a child under four­teen (14) years of age” eli­gi­ble for a death sen­tence. The bill passed by wide mar­gins in both cham­bers. Governor Kevin Stitt signed the bill on May 22, 2025, and it became law on November 1, 2025. 

In Florida, Representative Jonathan Martin (R) intro­duced SB 1804, which cre­ates the offense of cap­i­tal sex traf­fick­ing. Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill on June 19, 2025, and it became law on October 1, 2025. 

All of these bills mak­ing non-lethal sex crimes or human traf­fick­ing death-eli­gi­ble offens­es are con­trary to the Supreme Court’s 2008 deci­sion in Kennedy v. Louisiana. Similar bills have been intro­duced in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and in Congress. 

“Unborn Child” as Victim 

Bills in sev­er­al states have intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to add an ​“unborn child” as a vic­tim whose death could result in cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion (e.g., HB 518 in Alabama, HB 1334 in Indiana, and H 3537 in South Carolina). None have been enacted. 

Legislation Mandating Death Sentences for Undocumented Persons Convicted of Capital Felonies 

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Woodson v. North Carolina (1976) that manda­to­ry death sen­tences are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Despite this near­ly 50-year prece­dent, Florida law­mak­ers passed SB 4C dur­ing their spe­cial leg­isla­tive ses­sion, requir­ing the courts to impose a death sen­tence for a defen­dant who is an ​“unau­tho­rized alien” and who is con­vict­ed of a cap­i­tal felony. Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill on February 13, 2025, and it became effective immediately. 

Although Florida was the only state to enact leg­is­la­tion requir­ing manda­to­ry death sen­tences, oth­er bills tar­get­ing undoc­u­ment­ed per­sons were intro­duced in Pennsylvania (HB 896) and Oklahoma (HB 1307). In Congress, S 1675 and HR 4697 add ​“ille­gal aliens” who have ​“been con­vict­ed of killing, attempt­ing to kill, or con­spir­ing to kill a United States cit­i­zen” to the list of death-eli­gi­ble aggra­vat­ing fac­tors for fed­er­al death sentences. 

Legislation Expanding Aggravating Factors 

North Carolina’s HB 307, which became law on December 1, 2025, added crimes that occur on pub­lic trans­porta­tion as an aggra­vat­ing fac­tor, fol­low­ing the August 2025 high­ly pub­li­cized killing of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, on a light rail train in Charlotte. 

Lawmakers in Florida also enact­ed leg­is­la­tion to expand the num­ber of aggra­vat­ing fac­tors that allow pros­e­cu­tors to seek a death sen­tence. In Florida, two bills were enact­ed. HB 653, effec­tive July 1, 2025, adds a crime ​“com­mit­ted against head of state,” such as a President, Vice President, or Governor, or if in the process of such a crime a cap­i­tal felony was com­mit­ted against a sep­a­rate indi­vid­ual, to the state’s list of death-eli­gi­ble aggra­vat­ing fac­tors. HB 693, effec­tive October 1, 2025, expands aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances to include when a victim was ​“gath­ered with one or more per­sons for a school activ­i­ty, reli­gious activ­i­ty, or pub­lic gov­ern­ment meet­ing” at the time of the crime. 

Legislators in two states (Ohio and North Carolina) and in U.S. Congress intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to expand aggra­vat­ing fac­tors to include polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed killings. In North Carolina, the entire con­tents of SB 13, which was orig­i­nal­ly intro­duced by Senator Todd Johnson (R) regard­ing an unre­lat­ed mat­ter, was sub­sti­tut­ed in the House Rules, Calendar, and Operations Committee on September 22, 2025 to include ​“polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed acts of vio­lence.” In Ohio, Representatives Jack Daniels (R) and Josh Williams (R) intro­duced HB 457 to expand aggra­vat­ing fac­tors to include a crime motivated by ​“polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion, asso­ci­a­tion, belief, or ide­ol­o­gy” and whether the vic­tim was an elect­ed offi­cial. In Congress, Senator John Kennedy (R — Louisiana) intro­duced S 3104 to expand aggra­va­tors to include tar­get­ing a vic­tim based on ​“actu­al or per­ceived polit­i­cal or reli­gious beliefs, affil­i­a­tion, expres­sion, or activ­i­ty” or if the defen­dant com­mits a crime with the intent to ​“pro­mote, retal­i­ate against, influ­ence, protest, or oth­er­wise make a pub­lic state­ment con­cern­ing any polit­i­cal or reli­gious belief, prac­tice, insti­tu­tion, group, ide­ol­o­gy, event, or public figure.”

Legislation to Abolish or Limit Use of the Death Penalty for Certain Groups

Abolition 

Bills seek­ing to abol­ish the death penal­ty were intro­duced in 12 states with the death penal­ty (Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Texas), but none were enact­ed into law. 

Moratoriums on Executions 

Legislators in Texas and Oklahoma — the two states with the high­est exe­cu­tion totals in the mod­ern death penal­ty era — intro­duced bills to pause exe­cu­tions. In Texas, Representative Lauren Ashley Simmons (D) intro­duced HB 2792 to estab­lish a four-year mora­to­ri­um from September 1, 2025 to September 1, 2029. HB 2792 would have also required the state to eval­u­ate the cost dif­fer­ence between those sen­tenced to death and those sen­tenced to life with­out parole, as well as the impact of the death penal­ty on dif­fer­ent demo­graph­ic groups and the fam­i­lies of vic­tims and defendants. 

In Oklahoma, Senator Dave Rader (R) intro­duced SB 601 to cre­ate the Death Penalty Moratorium Act and cre­ate the Death Penalty Reform Task Force to review the progress of imple­ment­ing rec­om­men­da­tions from the 2017 Report of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission. In the Oklahoma House, Representative Justin Humphrey (R) sim­i­lar­ly intro­duced HB 1309 to pre­vent the impo­si­tion of new death sen­tences, vacate all sched­uled exe­cu­tion dates, and pre­vent the set­ting of new exe­cu­tion dates. Neither bill in Texas nor Oklahoma received a floor vote. 

Youth 

Legislative efforts were made in Texas and Nebraska to extend the Supreme Court’s 2005 deci­sion in Roper v. Simmons, which held the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty on juve­niles under the age of 18 as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, to include young peo­ple under the age of 21 (HB 2055) or age 22 (LB 700) at the time of the crime. While HB 2055 in Texas failed to pass, LB 700 in Nebraska remains pending. 

Intellectual Disability 

Texas leg­is­la­tors intro­duced bills to cod­i­fy the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 deci­sion in Atkins v. Virginia, where the Court held that exe­cut­ing indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties vio­lat­ed the 8^th Amendment’s pro­hi­bi­tion on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ments (HB 688 /​SB 432). The leg­is­la­tion failed to move out of com­mit­tee before the session closed.

A new law spon­sored by five Republicans and one Democrat, HB 123 in Georgia, now pro­vides pre­tri­al hear­ings for cap­i­tal defen­dants to raise intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claims and low­ers the stan­dard of proof for those claims from ​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt” (the high­est stan­dard in the coun­try) to a ​“pre­pon­der­ance of evi­dence.” The new law brings Georgia’s legal stan­dard in line with the 26 oth­er states that retain use of the death penal­ty. Although sim­i­lar bills have been intro­duced in the past, none had ever received a com­mit­tee vote before the leg­isla­tive ses­sion end­ed.² This year, HB 123 unan­i­mous­ly passed in the House and near­ly unan­i­mous­ly in the Senate on March 31, 2024. Republican Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill on May 13, 2025, effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly. Prior to the bill’s pas­sage, no per­son charged with an inten­tion­al homi­cide in Georgia had been able to meet the state’s bur­den of proof to demon­strate intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and there­fore be exempt­ed from death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty and execution. 

Legislation to Modify Death Penalty Appeals Procedures 

Lawmakers in eight states (California, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas) intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to mod­i­fy cap­i­tal appeals pro​ce​dures​.In addi­tion to HB 307 in North Carolina, three bills — two in California and one in Louisiana — were enact­ed this year.

Racial Justice 

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two amend­ments, AB 1071 and SB 734, to the ground­break­ing Racial Justice Act (CRJA) that pro­hibits crim­i­nal con­vic­tions and sen­tences based on race, eth­nic­i­ty, or nation­al ori­gin. Under this law, death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers are pro­vid­ed mean­ing­ful avenues of relief, beyond the rever­sal of a death sen­tence, if the state is found to be in vio­la­tion of these pro­tec­tions. AB 1071 now enables defen­dants to request dis­clo­sure of all evi­dence relat­ing to the state’s poten­tial vio­la­tion of CRJA and autho­rizes the court to order a rem­e­dy so long as it is not pro­hib­it­ed by anoth­er law. SB 734 allows a pub­lic agency from mak­ing per­son­nel actions against a pub­lic safe­ty offi­cer based on the ​“under­ly­ing acts or omis­sions” of a CRJA court claim so long as admin­is­tra­tive pro­to­col is fol­lowed; how­ev­er, it pro­hibits the admis­sion of the court find­ing in the CRJA pro­ceed­ing dur­ing admin­is­tra­tive personnel processes. 

Shortening Post-Conviction Appeals 

North Carolina’s bill HB 307 now estab­lish­es strict time­lines for pend­ing appeals and motions in cap­i­tal cas­es, requir­ing any fil­ing more than 24 months old to be sched­uled for a hear­ing by December 2026, and no lat­er than December 2027. 

Louisiana Representative Brian Glorioso (R) spon­sored HB 675, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly revis­es state post-con­vic­­tion pro­ceed­ings, includ­ing short­en­ing the time for pris­on­ers to sub­mit peti­tions for relief and for courts to review them. Under HB 675, death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers must file com­plete state post-con­vic­­tion relief appli­ca­tions to the state supreme court with­in two years of their direct appeal deci­sion or for­feit their right to ever do so. The changes have raised con­cerns that the new pro­vi­sions will result in wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The law pro­vides no excep­tions for new evi­dence, includ­ing poten­tial­ly exon­er­at­ing DNA evi­dence, and grants the Louisiana Attorney General the author­i­ty to file pro­ce­dur­al objec­tions to pris­on­ers’ claims and to move to dis­miss their peti­tions. The dra­mat­ic shift to del­e­gate author­i­ty to the Attorney General is also unusu­al, as the respon­si­bil­i­ty was tra­di­tion­al­ly assigned to the local dis­trict attor­ney. Governor Jeff Landry signed HB 675 on June 20, 2025, and it went into effect on August 1, 2025. 

Legislation to Modify the Procedure for Determining Mental Competency 

Oklahoma enact­ed HB 1693, which alters the legal pro­ce­dures to deter­mine men­tal com­pe­ten­cy for exe­cu­tion. Under this new law, pris­on­ers who have been found men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed will receive con­tin­ued treat­ment and eval­u­a­tions every six months until com­pe­ten­cy is restored. ​“It’s cer­tain­ly inef­fi­cient and a waste of resources,” Professor of Law and Director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project John Blume told The Oklahoman. ​“Even if this per­son just bare­ly squeaks over the line in com­pe­ten­cy, you’re still exe­cut­ing some­one who has a long-stand­ing, per­sis­tent, severe men­tal ill­ness, and that is some­thing that’s inhu­mane.” Governor Kevin Stitt signed HB 1693 on May 9, 2025, and it went into effect November 1, 2025.