The State of Florida killed 63-year-old David Pittman earlier this month, its 12th execution this year, the highest number since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
And Florida isn’t done yet. Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed two more death warrants for this year. Victor Tony Jones is scheduled to be killed September 30. Samuel Lee Smithers’ execution is set for October 14.
Seven states will join Florida with nine executions scheduled through December: Alabama (2), Texas (2), Indiana (1), Missouri (1), Mississippi (1), Arizona (1), and Tennessee (1). If carried out, the number of people executed this year will amount to a total of 42. That’s a significant increase from the 25 people killed in 2024, but, as Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robin M. Maher has pointed out, “This year will undoubtedly end with more executions than we have seen in a decade, but the long-term trend is still decidedly away from use of the death penalty. Executions are a lagging indicator of public support; they were sentenced at a time when support for the death penalty was much higher than it is today and more zealous prosecution policies were in place.”
The geographic disparity in death sentencing is in stark relief again this year; six of the eight states are in the South. “Studies have found that states with a greater history of lynchings also tend to have more modern death sentences, and that the link is even stronger between lynchings and death sentences imposed upon Black defendants,” the Death Penalty Information Center states.
October will be the grimmest month, with seven executions planned. The final execution is scheduled for December 11, when Tennessee plans to kill Harold Nichols. Tennessee’s last execution was in August, when it killed Byron Black, a 69-year-old Black man who had a documented intellectual disability, end-stage kidney disease, congestive heart failure, and cardiomyopathy that required a pacemaker. According to the Tennesseean, during Black’s execution, as the “pentobarbital flowed through his veins,” Black groaned and told his spiritual advisor, ‘It’s hurting so bad.'” Black’s attorney, Kelley Henry, is still awaiting the results of Black’s autopsy to try to understand what happened. “Make no mistake, we all saw with our own eyes that the pentobarbital did not work like the state’s expert testified that it would. Mr. Black suffered,” she said.