US Executions Surged in the Past Year to Highest Level in Over a Decade and a Half.
The count of state-sanctioned killings in the US has dramatically increased in 2025, reaching a rate not seen in since 2009. This sharp uptick is attributed to a focused campaign to reinvigorate judicial killings, coupled 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 men—each one were male—were executed by states maintaining the death penalty this year. This figure is nearly twice the total from 2024, marking the highest annual total for executions in the country since 2009.
"Data indicates that the death penalty in 2025 is increasingly unpopular with the public even as politicians carry out death sentences in search of waning political benefits."
A Global Outlier
This pronounced rise further isolates the United States from nearly all other advanced economies, very few of which still carry out executions. Currently, just Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan have conducted executions among peer countries.
A Public Opinion Divide
The resurgence of state killings stands in stark contrast with long-term trends and current public sentiment. Over the past two decades, the use of the death penalty had been in gradual decline. Meanwhile, polling indicate support for capital punishment for those convicted of murder has fallen to a 50-year low, with 52% of respondents in favor. Most of adults under the age of 55 now are against it.
Presidential Influence
On his inauguration day back in office, the President issued an executive order titled "Reinstating Capital Punishment." This order aimed to ensure that statutes permitting capital punishment were "respected and faithfully implemented," marking a clear change from the previous presidency.
"It’s in the air, it’s in the national rhetoric sent down from the top—you use violence and cruelty to solve social problems," stated a prominent activist against executions.
A Surge in State Executions
The federal push was echoed and intensified at the level of individual states. The state of Florida emerged as a particular extreme case, conducting 19 executions in 2025—a dramatic increase from just one the previous year. This broke the state's prior annual record.
Alongside several other southern states, these a quartet of jurisdictions were the source of almost 75% of all deaths this year. In total, a dozen states actively used their death chambers, up from nine states in 2024.
Evolving Methods
As more executions occurred, some states adopted increasingly extreme techniques. One state ended a long period without executions and followed another state's lead to use nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method. Observers reported the condemned individual convulsed for multiple minutes during the procedure.
In another development, a different state carried out the first execution by a squad of shooters in the US since 2010, deploying this approach for three of its total executions this year. Reports suggested that in one case, imprecise aim may have caused extended agony for the individual.
A Changed Judicial Landscape
The surge in death sentences carried out is also connected to the position of the nation's highest court. The court's conservative majority denied every request to stay an execution in 2025, a rare display of reluctance to intervene.
This represents a shift from the court's historical role as a final avenue for legal challenges based on innocence claims, rights-based arguments, or charges of excessive cruelty. "We’re now operating without a safety net," noted a law professor. "The judiciary are supposed to serve as a backstop, but that stop gap has been eviscerated."
