By Vanguard Staff
The United States carried out as many executions in the first half of 2025 as it did in all of 2024, according to a mid-year review released by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). But while executions are up, the number of new death sentences remains near historic lows, underscoring what the DPIC calls a profound disconnect between political decisions and public sentiment.
Twenty-five executions have already taken place this year, with 60 percent of them concentrated in just three states—Florida, Texas, and South Carolina. Florida alone has accounted for seven executions. The people executed in 2025 spent an average of 24 years on death row, a delay that reflects the period when public and prosecutorial support for the death penalty was far higher than it is today. As of November 2024, public support for capital punishment had dropped to 53 percent, the lowest level in five decades.
By contrast, only ten new death sentences have been imposed so far this year, down nearly 30 percent from the same period in 2024. These new sentences are spread across six states and reflect the views of today’s jurors, not the political push behind recent executions. Two of Alabama’s new death sentences were based on non-unanimous jury votes—only ten jurors favored death—under laws that currently exist only in Alabama and Florida.
President Trump’s January 2025 executive order urging state prosecutors to seek new death sentences for 37 individuals whose federal capital sentences were commuted by President Biden has yielded only one new state prosecution, in Louisiana. Most prosecutors across the country have declined to follow the directive. Officials in Missouri and Texas explicitly stated that pursuing new capital charges would be costly, impractical, and not in the public interest.
All of the states that have carried out executions this year operate under laws or policies that shield the public from vital information. Florida has offered no explanation for how it selects individuals for execution and has not granted clemency to anyone on death row since 1983. Indiana barred media witnesses from attending the execution of Benjamin Ritchie in May, leading to conflicting accounts about whether he experienced visible pain or distress during the process. In South Carolina, details of a botched firing squad execution only came to light after defense attorneys released the autopsy report showing wounds inconsistent with the expected procedure.
The costs of carrying out the death penalty remain staggering and largely hidden. Indiana spent more than $1.1 million on execution drugs for two executions, nearly half of which expired before use. Governor Mike Braun has since said he will not approve additional drug purchases, calling the price unjustifiable. Idaho officials disclosed that the state spent $200,000 on execution drugs that also expired, and it will spend over $1 million on a new firing squad facility. Tennessee has spent $600,000 on lethal injection drugs since 2017 but has carried out only two executions in that time. A Kansas judge recently found that the state’s pursuit of capital punishment has cost Wyandotte County more than $4.2 million since 1994.
Legislation to expand the death penalty or alter execution methods remains concentrated in just a handful of states. Florida passed five new laws, including one that authorizes any method of execution not explicitly deemed unconstitutional—a category that currently includes virtually every method. Other laws in Florida added new capital crimes and even a mandatory death penalty for certain people convicted of capital offenses, such as unauthorized immigrants, despite the U.S. Supreme Court having ruled mandatory death sentences unconstitutional in 1976. Arkansas and Idaho adopted new execution methods—nitrogen asphyxiation and the firing squad, respectively. Idaho and Oklahoma have also added certain non-homicide crimes, like child sexual assault, to the list of death-eligible offenses, challenging Supreme Court precedent.
Racial disparities continue to define the administration of the death penalty in the United States. Of the 25 people executed so far in 2025, only one was convicted of killing a person of color. The other 24 were executed for crimes involving white victims, meaning white victims represented nearly 97 percent of those whose deaths resulted in executions. Meanwhile, 80 percent of the individuals newly sentenced to death this year are people of color.
Eight more executions are scheduled before the end of the year. The Death Penalty Information Center plans to release a full year-end report in December with updated figures and additional analysis.
