Florida, which has already killed 17 people this year, has scheduled two more executions for December. Tennessee has also scheduled an execution for next month, which means if all three killings proceed, the U.S. will record 47 executions this year. That is double the number of people killed in 2024, and the highest total since 2010, when 46 people were killed by the state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
“Florida has now executed 17 people this year. Not one received a stay. The State is relying on speed, exhaustion, and silence,” Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty stated on its website after last week’s execution of Richard Barry Randolph (Malik Abdul-Sajjad).
Florida is an outlier not just in its current zeal for state killing. According to DPIC in its report, “Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty,” The state has sentenced at least 117 veterans to death—more than any other state.” And, “In the past five years, no state has sentenced more than one veteran to death, except Florida.” (In fact, Richard Barry Randolph (Malik Abdul-Sajjad) was the seventh veteran Florida executed this year.)
We can hope that Gov. Ron DeSantis has quenched his zeal for state killing after this year, but it’s a slim hope. As Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty stated on its website after Randolph’s execution, “In its prideful quest to be the deadliest state in the nation, Florida has created more victims. It has slammed the door on healing, hope, and redemption. Florida has mastered the cold mechanics of killing and shown no interest in anything beyond that function. We have lost our way.”