Florida Executions Outpace All Other States Since 2025

Since the beginning of 2025, Florida has carried out more executions than every other U.S. state combined, cementing its status as a dramatic outlier in American capital punishment. Under Governor Ron DeSantis, the state executed 19 people in 2025 — more than double its previous modern record of eight — and has already executed nine more in 2026 as of June 30, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Florida’s 19 executions in 2025 accounted for approximately 40% of all U.S. executions that year, which totaled 47 — up from 25 in 2024. The second-highest execution states in 2025 were Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas, each with five. Only Texas has ever exceeded 18 executions in a single year, executing 24 in 2009.

A Governor with Unchecked Power

Central to Florida’s execution surge is the unique legal authority held by its governor. Unlike most states where courts and prosecutors set execution dates, Florida’s governor holds sole authority to sign death warrants. DeSantis has issued death warrants for 32 people since taking office in 2019, and the pace has accelerated dramatically in the past 18 months.

“We’ve heard from a lot of the family members of the victims over the years,” DeSantis said at a November 2025 press conference. “There’s a saying, justice delayed is justice denied.” He added that capital punishment is “an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders.”

Florida’s death warrant process typically gives inmates about one month from issuance to execution, while the national average is approximately three times that, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The Lowest Jury Threshold in the Nation

In 2023, DeSantis signed a bill reducing the jury requirement for death sentences from unanimous to just eight of 12 jurors — the lowest threshold in the country. This rolled back a 2016 unanimous jury requirement established after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hurst v. Florida decision. Only Alabama also allows non-unanimous recommendations, requiring 10 of 12 jurors.

The implications are stark: 97% of Florida’s 30 death row exonerees were sentenced by non-unanimous juries. Eight of the 19 people executed in 2025 were sentenced under non-unanimous jury recommendations.

Troubling Questions About Lethal Injection

Florida remains the only state using a three-drug lethal injection protocol consisting of etomidate (a sedative), rocuronium bromide (a paralytic), and potassium acetate (which stops the heart). Most other states and the federal system use a single-drug protocol.

A Mother Jones investigation documented significant procedural failures in at least nine executions from February to September 2025, including the use of expired etomidate in four executions, underdosing of required drugs in two executions, unlogged etomidate appearing in autopsy results, and the use of lidocaine — a local anesthetic not listed in the state’s execution protocol.

Autopsy reports have found pulmonary edema in executed prisoners, a condition that anesthesiologist Dr. Joel Zivot described as causing “the terror that accompanies drowning and asphyxiation as they choke on their own blood.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed concern in a February 2026 statement, warning that “by continuing to shroud its executions in secrecy, Florida undermines both the integrity of its own execution process and, potentially, this Court’s ability to ensure the State’s compliance with its constitutional obligations.”

Vulnerable Populations on Death Row

Among those executed in 2025 were four individuals with documented intellectual disabilities — James Ford, David Pittman, Victor Jones, and Frank Walls — despite categorical legal protections under both Florida and federal law. Their claims were dismissed as “raised too late or incorrectly.”

Seven of the 19 executed in 2025 were military veterans, constituting 70% of all veterans executed nationwide that year. Robin Maher, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, noted that “the vulnerabilities and the difficulties they experienced as a result of their military service were not properly presented to juries.”

Two executed individuals, Victor Jones and Michael Bell, were survivors of abuse at state-run reform schools that the Florida Legislature officially acknowledged. Four others faced execution without adequate legal representation, including two who had death warrants signed while they had no state-appointed counsel.

The Human Cost of Speed

Former Florida State Prison Warden Ron McAndrew, who oversaw three electric chair executions, warned that the current pace is “testing the limits of the law” and expressed concern about the toll on prison staff. “To put a warden and a death team through 19 executions in one year was a horrible thing for the Governor to do,” McAndrew said. “These are the people that are going to wake up screaming in the middle of the night.”

Grace Hanna, Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, described 2025 as a year in which “Florida chose to treat human lives as an acceptable cost in the pursuit of political advantage.”

What Comes Next

Florida executed Dusty Ray Spencer on June 25, 2026 — at age 74, the oldest person put to death in the state since 1976. His jury recommended death by a 7-5 vote. Two more executions are scheduled for July 2026: Dennis Sochor, 74, on July 14, and Dominick Occhicone, 80, on July 28. If Occhicone is executed, he will become the oldest person executed in Florida’s modern history.

There are currently 247 inmates on Florida’s death row. With the state on track to potentially exceed its 2025 record, and with public support for the death penalty at its lowest since 1972 — 52% in October 2025 Gallup polling — the disconnect between public opinion and state action continues to widen. As Hannah Gorman, a death penalty law professor at Florida International University, observed: “Florida is an outlier in the U.S. But this is also a massive message coming out of America.”

The question remains whether the U.S. Supreme Court will intervene on Florida’s lethal injection protocol, and whether the scheduled executions of elderly inmates will shift public perception of capital punishment in America.