MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma are each scheduled to put a person to death Thursday, potentially marking the first time in nearly 16 years that the United States has carried out three executions in a single day, as concerns over execution procedures, medical complications and the accelerating use of capital punishment continue to surround the cases.
If all three lethal injections go forward, they would mark the first three-execution day in the United States since Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas each executed someone, according to the Associated Press. Three executions were also scheduled for a single day in 2018, but only one took place after a reprieve in Texas and IV line trouble in Alabama.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that collects and analyzes data on capital punishment, told AP that the overlap is largely a scheduling coincidence. But she said it comes as a shrinking cluster of five or six states accounts for most of the country’s executions and new death sentences.
The pace of executions has accelerated, according to AP. Eleven states executed 47 people in 2025, the most in any year since 2009, and Florida alone accounted for 19 of them.
Tennessee put three people to death that year, while Alabama, South Carolina and Texas each carried out five.
The 19 executions carried out so far in 2026 have taken place in just four states. In July, Florida executed two people on a single day.
The Death Penalty Information Center’s execution schedule lists Anthony Darrell Hines in Tennessee, Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez in Oklahoma and Jeremy Williams in Alabama for execution Aug. 13.
Tennessee’s execution of Hines, 66, has drawn particular scrutiny because it would be the state’s first execution attempt since May, when officials called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers after the execution team was unable to establish a required backup IV line.
AP reported that the execution team placed a primary IV quickly but then spent more than an hour trying and failing to insert the backup line before officials abandoned the procedure. Carruthers received a one-year reprieve.
Hines has pointed to that failure in seeking to stop his own execution. He argues that two strokes this year, which left him partially paralyzed, make IV problems more likely.
His attorneys have also argued that the doctor who oversaw Carruthers’ attempted execution is unqualified and that using the same physician would increase the risk that Hines’ execution could also go wrong.
Hines’ attorneys asked the Tennessee Supreme Court in July to conditionally stay the execution unless the Tennessee Department of Correction replaced the physician involved in the Carruthers attempt. The department has refused to disclose whether it intends to use the same physician for Hines.
According to additional reporting by The Guardian, Hines’ attorneys have now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, citing medical declarations about the difficulty execution personnel could encounter establishing IV access because of Hines’ health.
The physician involved in the Carruthers attempt, Dr. Mark Fowler, testified that he had not placed a central line since 2013, according to The Guardian. Tennessee officials have declined to confirm whether Fowler will participate in Hines’ execution.
The controversy has prompted medical professionals, legal advocates and lawmakers to call for Tennessee to pause executions and review its procedures following the Carruthers attempt. Gov. Bill Lee, however, has declined to intervene in Hines’ execution.
The Tennessee Supreme Court also refused last week to stay the execution, noting that Hines had not proved the doctor lacked qualifications. The state has continued to decline to say whether the same doctor will participate Thursday.
The Tennessee Supreme Court originally set Hines’ execution for Aug. 13 in a September 2025 order after concluding there was no legal reason preventing the sentence from being carried out and declining his request for a certificate of commutation.
The Tennessee Department of Correction has scheduled the execution for 10 a.m. Central time at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.
Hines was convicted of fatally stabbing 54-year-old Catherine Jean Jackson Jenkins in 1985 at a Kingston Springs motel where she worked, according to AP. He was first sentenced to death in 1986, won an appeal for a new sentencing hearing and was sentenced to death again in 1989.
In Alabama, Jeremy Williams, 42, is scheduled to die by lethal injection for the 2021 rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland. Williams pleaded guilty and has asked the state to carry out his sentence.
Williams’ case has moved toward execution unusually quickly compared with most death penalty cases. The Equal Justice Initiative reported that Williams was charged with four counts of capital murder in 2022 and pleaded guilty in March 2024.
Alabama law nevertheless required the state to establish his guilt in a capital trial. Williams subsequently declined to pursue the lengthy appeals and post-conviction litigation that typically keep people on death row for years or decades.
DPIC data cited by AP shows that about 10% of people executed in the United States are “volunteers” who give up their appeals, though most have spent far longer on death row. Maher said the roughly two years between Williams’ 2024 conviction and his scheduled execution is unusually brief.
Advocates opposing Williams’ execution have argued that a prisoner’s decision to waive appeals does not eliminate the state’s responsibility for carrying out a death sentence. Catholic Mobilizing Network, which opposes capital punishment, said Williams has characterized his decision to waive appeals as an act of remorse and penance while the organization continues to oppose his execution.
If the execution proceeds, it will be Alabama’s first of 2026. In June, a federal judge ruled the state’s nitrogen gas method unconstitutional, halting a separate execution.
Williams is scheduled to be executed at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
Oklahoma is set to execute Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, for the 2003 shooting death of his girlfriend, Olimpia Fisher. He would be the third person put to death in the state this year.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections lists Cuesta-Rodriguez’s execution for Aug. 13.
Last month, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-1 against recommending clemency. His attorneys had asked the board to recommend life without parole, citing his difficult childhood, brain damage, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression with psychotic episodes.
His attorney, Emma Rolls, told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that Cuesta-Rodriguez had endured significant trauma and suffered from serious mental health problems, according to Oklahoma Voice.
Cuesta-Rodriguez, however, told the board through a Spanish-language interpreter that he did not want clemency, AP reported. He said he wanted Fisher’s two daughters to know that he regretted what happened.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond opposed clemency, arguing that Cuesta-Rodriguez had stalked and abused Fisher before killing her and that her family had waited more than two decades for the sentence to be carried out. After the board’s July 14 vote, Drummond praised its decision and said the execution should proceed.
Fisher’s relatives also opposed clemency, while Cuesta-Rodriguez told the board he believed it was time for him to accept punishment for what he had done.
The three scheduled executions come as the use of capital punishment remains concentrated in a relatively small number of states. If all three executions proceed Thursday, six states will have carried out executions in 2026, according to AP.
The convergence has also drawn opposition from death penalty abolition organizations and civil rights groups. LatinoJustice PRLDEF issued a statement Wednesday condemning all three scheduled executions, pointing to concerns surrounding Hines’ health and Tennessee’s execution procedures, Williams’ execution in Alabama and the evidence of brain damage and mental illness presented by Cuesta-Rodriguez’s attorneys in Oklahoma.
The heightened attention is particularly focused on Tennessee, where the failed Carruthers execution attempt has raised questions about whether the state can reliably carry out lethal injection and whether officials have provided sufficient transparency about the personnel responsible for the procedure.
“All eyes really are on Tennessee at this moment,” Maher told AP.
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