US Executions Surged in the Past Year to Peak in 16 Years.
The number of state-sanctioned killings in the US has sharply risen in 2025, hitting a level not seen in since 2009. This sharp uptick is attributed to a focused campaign to reinvigorate judicial killings, combined with a significant change in the stance of the US Supreme Court toward last-minute appeals.
A Sobering Count: 47 Executions in a Single Year
Exactly 47 individuals—each one were male—were put to death by states maintaining the death penalty this year. This number represents nearly double the count from the previous year, marking the most active period for capital punishment in the country since 2009.
"Data indicates that the death penalty in 2025 is growing less popular with the American people even as elected officials schedule executions in search of diminishing political benefits."
A Global Outlier
This sharp increase further isolates the United States from nearly all other developed nations, very few of which still carry out executions. Currently, just a handful of Asian nations have conducted capital punishment among peer countries.
A Public Opinion Divide
The comeback of state killings stands in stark contrast with long-term trends and modern public opinion. Over the past two decades, the use of the death penalty had been in gradual decline. At the same time, polling indicate support for capital punishment for murder convictions has fallen to a 50-year low, with 52% of Americans in favor. A majority of adults under the age of 55 now are against it.
Executive Action Sets the Tone
On his first day back in office, the sitting President issued an presidential directive titled "Restoring the Death Penalty." This order aimed to guarantee that statutes permitting capital punishment were "respected and faithfully implemented," signaling a major shift from the previous presidency.
"It’s in the air, it’s in the national rhetoric sent down from the top—the idea is to use harsh measures to solve social problems," remarked a well-known anti-death penalty advocate.
State-Level Frenzy
The national initiative was echoed and amplified at the level of individual states. Florida emerged as a notable extreme case, conducting 19 executions in 2025—a staggering increase from just one the previous year. This broke the state's prior annual record.
Alongside Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas, these four states were the source of almost three-quarters of all executions this year. In total, a dozen states actively used their execution facilities, up from nine in 2024.
Evolving Methods
As activity increased, some states turned to increasingly extreme methods. One state ended a 15-year hiatus and became the second state to use nitrogen hypoxia as an means of execution. Witnesses reported the condemned individual convulsed for multiple minutes during the process.
In another development, a different state performed the first execution by a squad of shooters in the US since 2010, using this method for three of its total executions this year. Accounts suggested that in an instance, faulty targeting may have caused extended agony for the individual.
A Changed Judicial Landscape
The surge in executions is also linked to the position of the nation's highest court. The majority-conservative bench denied every request to stay an execution in 2025, a rare display of reluctance to intervene.
This marks a change from the court's traditional function as a final avenue for legal challenges based on innocence claims, rights-based arguments, or allegations of cruel punishment. "The system now functions lacking a crucial backup," noted a legal scholar. "The judiciary are supposed to serve as a backstop, but that stop gap has been removed."
