Upcoming Executions Illustrate Persistent Themes and Concerns Around the Death Penalty

Beginning October 10^th, and then over the next eight days, six peo­ple are sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion in six dif­fer­ent states. Already this year, there have been 34 exe­cu­tions in nine states. While the con­cen­tra­tion of so many exe­cu­tions in such a short peri­od will cer­tain­ly attract atten­tion, the num­ber is not the head­line. These cas­es high­light impor­tant  issues that are true when­ev­er and wher­ev­er there are exe­cu­tions. 

First, even at this late stage, no exe­cu­tion is a fore­gone con­clu­sion. Each of these six men have a right to chal­lenge their exe­cu­tions, and many still have cred­i­ble legal claims pend­ing before state and fed­er­al courts. Their claims include (1) objec­tions to the method of exe­cu­tion (over 7% of lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions have been botched); (2) chal­lenges to the exe­cu­tion of elder­ly pris­on­ers; (3) jury bias; (4) mis­di­ag­nosed men­tal ill­ness; (5) defense coun­sel so inef­fec­tive they told a jury their client want­ed a death sen­tence; and (6) actu­al inno­cence. While the legal sys­tem ordi­nar­i­ly requires that these issue be resolved before any­one is exe­cut­ed, it is also true that polit­i­cal pres­sures and per­son­al agen­das of elect­ed offi­cials often influ­ence the tim­ing and out­comes of cas­es as much as the law or facts of any case.  

Second, data con­firm that fac­tors such as race, pover­ty, geog­ra­phy, and — now more than ever — pol­i­tics, con­tin­ue to influ­ence and deter­mine who is sen­tenced to death and exe­cut­ed. Samuel Smithers is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on October 14, 2025, mak­ing him the 14^th per­son set for exe­cu­tion in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis has sched­uled and over­seen more exe­cu­tions in a sin­gle year than any pre­vi­ous Florida gov­er­nor, while also refus­ing to pro­vide any pub­lic ratio­nale for his deci­sions. Florida is one of only two states (along with Pennsylvania) that gives the gov­er­nor sole author­i­ty to set execution dates.

Third, there is no evi­dence that the pub­lic agrees with the enor­mous invest­ment of gov­ern­ment resources need­ed to car­ry out exe­cu­tions. Polls have marked a steady march away from use of the death penal­ty over the past few decades. Public oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty has more than tripled in the last three decades, includ­ing among a major­i­ty of young adults age 18 to 43. The com­ing week’s exe­cu­tions reflect the deci­sions of juries from decades ear­li­er, at a time when sup­port for and use of the death penal­ty was much high­er. Today’s juries are far more like­ly to return a sen­tence less than death: new death sen­tences have declined more than 90% from a peak of 316 in 1986.

Finally, these and all exe­cu­tions also raise con­cerns about secre­cy and cost. Fifteen years ago, some drug com­pa­nies refused to sell their prod­ucts to pris­ons for use in exe­cu­tions. States have since then been exper­i­ment­ed with new drugs and dif­fer­ent drug com­bi­na­tions to car­ry out exe­cu­tions, result­ing in some pro­longed exe­cu­tions in which pris­on­ers exhib­it­ed symp­toms of pain and dis­tress. The dif­fi­cul­ty obtain­ing some drugs for lethal injec­tion has also dri­ven up the cost; many states have cho­sen to hide the sources of the drugs they pur­chase, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to assess their reli­a­bil­i­ty and effi­ca­cy. Three quar­ters of the states still active­ly using the death penal­ty refuse to share pub­licly their exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures and processes.

A brief descrip­tion of each of the peo­ple sched­uled for exe­cu­tion over the next eight days and some of the legal claims they have assert­ed can be found below.

Roy Lee Ward is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by the state of Indiana before sun­rise on October 10, 2025. Mr. Ward had peti­tioned for a stay of exe­cu­tion after wit­ness­es observed that the last per­son exe­cut­ed in Indiana — Benjamin Ritchie on May 20, 2025 – sat up and shook vio­lent­ly in pain dur­ing his exe­cu­tion; Mr. Ward dropped those claims on October 8, 2025. Mr. Ward’s attor­neys have also argued in past fil­ings that he was mis­char­ac­ter­ized at tri­al and on appeal as a remorse­less psy­chopath, when a prop­er diag­no­sis would have instead revealed his autism. According to his attor­neys, ​“Roy has feel­ings, and he him­self has rec­og­nized that he has dis­abil­i­ties and issues that he want­ed help for.”

Lance C. Shockley is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by the state of Missouri at 6:00 pm CDT on October 14, 2025. At tri­al, Mr. Shockley’s jury fore­man was removed before the sen­tenc­ing phase based on evi­dence of seri­ous bias — but Mr. Shockley’s attor­ney declined the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ques­tion the fore­man or oth­er jurors about the mis­con­duct, and his con­vic­tion, which the fore­man par­tic­i­pat­ed in, was allowed to stand. Mr. Shockley tried to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Court declined to hear the appeal. In their dis­sent, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson high­light­ed the sever­i­ty of Mr. Shockley’s attorney’s fail­ure to vin­di­cate his client’s legal rights. ​“It is dif­fi­cult to see how an attorney’s deci­sion not to call wit­ness­es in sup­port of a cred­i­ble mis­tri­al motion, when invit­ed to do so by the pre­sid­ing judge in a cap­i­tal mur­der tri­al, could fail to con­sti­tute inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel,” said Justice Sotomayor. Additionally, after the jury failed to reach a unan­i­mous deci­sion dur­ing the penal­ty phase of his tri­al, the judge in his case imposed a death sen­tence, a pro­ce­dure autho­rized in only two states. According to a recent poll con­duct­ed by Nicholas Scurich, pro­fes­sor and chair of psy­chol­o­gy at the University of California, Irvine, 65 per­cent of Missouri vot­ers believe Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe should com­mute Mr. Shockley’s death sen­tence to life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Mr. Shockley also main­tains he is innocent.

Samuel Lee Smithers is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by the state of Florida at 6:00 pm EDT on October 14, 2025. Attorneys for Mr. Smithers, who is 72 years old, claim that exe­cut­ing an elder­ly per­son vio­lates both Florida and the U.S. Constitutions’ pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment and fails to meet any valid peno­log­i­cal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. On October 7, 2025, the Florida Supreme Court declined to con­sid­er this claim.

Charles Ray Crawford is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by the state of Mississippi at 6:00 pm CDT on October 15, 2025. Mr. Crawford is cur­rent­ly appeal­ing his case to the U.S. Supreme Court after hav­ing lost an appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court ear­li­er this year. Among the claims that he is rais­ing are that his tri­al attor­ney entered a guilty plea with­out his con­sent and that he pur­sued an insan­i­ty defense over Mr. Crawford’s objec­tions. In fil­ings with the Mississippi Supreme Court, Mr. Crawford’s cur­rent attor­neys cite to his tri­al tran­script, where his tri­al attor­ney referred to Mr. Crawford as a ​“mon­ster” in open court and told the jury his client ​“wants the death penal­ty.” In a state­ment released in the wake of the Mississippi Supreme Court’s September 12, 2025, refusal to hear Mr. Crawford’s case, his cur­rent attor­neys com­ment­ed, ​“A tri­al like Mr. Crawford’s – one where coun­sel con­cedes guilt over his client’s express wish­es – is essen­tial­ly no tri­al at all.”  

Robert Roberson is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by the state of Texas at 6:00 pm CDT on October 16, 2025. His attor­neys filed a Notice of New Evidence with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on October 6, 2025, bring­ing to light new evi­dence uncov­ered by NBC’s ​“Dateline” pod­cast[RM1]  to fur­ther sub­stan­ti­ate a pend­ing judi­cial mis­con­duct claim in his case. Mr. Roberson has been on death row for over twen­ty years, despite strong evi­dence of his actual innocence. 

Richard Djerf is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by the state of Arizona at 10:00 am MST on October 17, 2025. Mr. Djerf has said that he no longer wish­es to pre­vent his exe­cu­tion. In a hand writ­ten note released on September 8, 2025, Mr. Djerf also said he would not seek relief from the state’s clemen­cy board. ​“If I can’t find rea­son to spare my life, what rea­son would any­one else have?” he wrote. ​“I hope my death brings some mea­sure of peace.”