So far this year, seven executions have been carried out in three states. Florida executed four people, Texas two, and Oklahoma one. Twenty-nine executions are scheduled in eight states, but eight warrants are inactive. Ohio’s three active warrants are also highly unlikely to be carried out because the state cannot get lethal injection drugs, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s execution frenzy last year resulted in the execution of 19 people, a number that “well-exceeded the all-time record of 11 in 1942, and more than doubled the post-Furman record of 8 in 2014,” according to FADP’s 2025 annual report, and it appears DeSantis is planning another execution spree this year. He has signed two more death warrants — James Duckett is scheduled to be killed on March 31, and Chadwick Willacy on April 21– and FADP Executive Director Grace Hanna stated on the FADP website that she was expecting a third warrant to be signed in the next few weeks. As The New York Times’s Adam Liptak wrote in his recent column, Ron DeSantis Wants Speedy Executions, and Lots of Them,” “The machinery of death is humming in Florida.”
Texas is right behind Florida. Having already executed two men, the state has scheduled three more executions for this year, one each in April, May, and November. However, the state’s plan to kill James Broadnax on April 30 is now complicated by the appeal Broadnax filed on March 1, which includes a signed confession by Broadnax’s cousin confessing to the 2008 robbery and murder that Broadnax was convicted of. According to the Texas Tribune, Demarius Cummings convinced Broadnax to confess to killing 26-year-old Stephen Swan and 28-year-old Matthew Butler because Broadnax didn’t have a criminal history, while Cummings did.
Oklahoma has one more execution planned, and Tennessee has four death warrants pending.