Forty people have been executed so far this year; six more executions are scheduled before year-end. If all six proceed, the U.S. will have executed 46 people, the highest number since 2012, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Eleven states, including Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee, have killed people this year. Florida continues to lead the way, with 14 executions, DPIC reports.
And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t done yet. He has signed death warrants for three more people, and if those executions proceed, the 17 killed will lead to a new record for the state. It’s a record built on the execution of men with physical, psychological, and cognitive challenges. Men like 72-year-old Samuel Smithers, “the first person over the age of 70 to be executed in Florida since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976,” Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty stated on its website.
How many of those executed so far, and those slated to be executed, were, according to FADP, like Norman Grim, “without any state counsel for years as the state contemplated his execution.” And who, after DeSantis signed his death warrant, waited “four full days for the state to even assign him an attorney, when the machinery of death was already in motion.” Faced with these overwhelming odds, Grim waived his final appeals.
“Florida is killing someone every 16 days, the fastest pace in modern history. These executions serve no purpose other than to perpetuate violence in the name of justice,” FADP stated.“We will never let this state forget what has happened. We will never let people forget what our Governor and Attorney General have done in our names. The history of this administration will be measured by the lives they chose to take — and by the people who refused to look away.”
In Oklahoma, Lance Shockley, killed earlier this month, was sentenced to death by a judge after the jury deadlocked 11 -1. Missouri and Indiana are the only two states that allow judges to impose a death sentence if there’s a hung jury. A survey conducted by UC Irvine Professor Nicholas Scurich before Shockley’s execution, “found that 65 percent of Missouri voters believe the governor should commute Shockley’s death sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.” Their reservations were based on concerns about the reliability of the evidence; the lack of DNA testing, and the fact that Shockley had been sentenced to death by a judge instead of a jury. Scurich presented his findings at the governor’s office. Kehoe was apparently unmoved.
“Gov. Kehoe’s decision to deny clemency follows a pattern identified by DPI in its Lethal Election report (2024): executive officials with the sole authority to grant clemency in capital cases almost never do so when they are eligible for reelection,” the Death Penalty Information Center pointed out.
DPF stands with FADP, and all the abolition groups tirelessly working to raise awareness of the barbarity of state killing, the rampant injustice of the courts, and the cold political calculations of state leaders like DeSantis, who seem to believe the road to higher office requires human sacrifice. We stand with them as they hold vigils, sponsor petitions, attend hearings, meet with lawmakers, and get up every day determined to do whatever they can to extinguish this zeal to kill.