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USA - Mid-Year Review: New Death Sentences Low, Increase in Executions

July 10, 2025:

July 10, 2025 - USA. Mid-Year Review 2025: New Death Sentences Remain Low Amidst Increase in Executions

At the midpoint of 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) offers this detailed analysis of the key facts and themes emerging in the use of the death penalty across the U.S. For more than 30 years, DPI has been the preeminent national resource for timely and trustworthy information about the death penalty. Its careful tracking and analysis of death sentences, executions, legislation, and newsworthy events provides critical context to inform meaningful public debate and sound policy decisions.

I. This year’s increase in executions reflects the decisions of elected officials in a few states, not a change in public support, while the number of new death sentences remains low.
The 25 executions carried out in the first six months of 2025 equal the total number of executions for all of 2024. But this year’s executions are heavily geographically concentrated: 7 (28%) in Florida and 4 each (16%) in Texas and South Carolina, for a total of 60% of executions in just three states. People executed this year spent an average of 24 years on death row, confirming once again that executions are a lagging indicator of public support; they were sentenced at a time when support for the death penalty was much higher than it is today and more zealous prosecution policies were in place. Public support for the death penalty, last measured in November 2024, is the lowest in 50 years (53%).
New death sentences are down nearly 30% compared to the same period last year. Ten people in six states have been sentenced to death so far in 2025, marking a decrease from last year’s pace of 14 new death sentences in the first half of 2024. These new death sentences reflect the decisions of today’s juries and are a current measure of public sentiment on the death penalty. Both of Alabama’s new death sentences resulted from non-unanimous jury votes, with only 10 jurors voting for death. Alabama and Florida are the only two states that allow non-unanimous juries to impose sentences of death.
President Trump’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order urged state prosecutors to seek new death sentences for the 37 men whose federal death sentences were commuted to life without parole by President Biden. But only one person, Thomas Steven Sanders in Louisiana, faces new state capital charges. Florida prosecutors have also announced that they will reopen the case of Daniel Troya and Ricardo Sanchez, Jr., with the possibility that they will seek new death sentences for the two men. But other state prosecutors have declined President Trump’s invitation, citing high costs and logistical complications. In Missouri, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office announced it would not seek death sentences for two prisoners, stating “additional charges at the state level would not enhance public safety in the St. Louis region,” and concluding that further prosecution “is not in the public interest.” In Texas, Tarrant County prosecutors made a similar decision, saying, “We have discussed the facts and circumstances of Julius Robinson’s case with both former and current federal prosecutors familiar with the case. This case is not viable for a capital murder prosecution.”

II. Increased secrecy denies the public critical information about execution decisions. 
Every state that has carried out executions in 2025 has a secrecy law or policy blocking the public from learning critical details about how their elected officials use their taxpayer dollars and perform executions.
Florida, which has carried out the most executions in 2025 (7), provides no public information about how prisoners are selected for execution. Florida’s clemency process is also shrouded in complete secrecy. No death row prisoner in Florida has been granted clemency since 1983.
Indiana, which executed Benjamin Ritchie on May 20, is an outlier in the way it bars any media witnesses from observing executions. Steve Schutte, an attorney for Mr. Ritchie, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle that Mr. Ritchie made what appeared to be “violent” movements, lifting his head and shoulders abruptly from the gurney soon after it is believed the drugs began to flow. Two additional witnesses at Mr. Ritchie’s execution corroborated Mr. Schutte’s account. But an Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) spokesperson disputed these observations, telling the Capital Chronicle that Mr. Schutte’s account ​“is not an accurate description of the circumstances” and maintaining that Mr. Ritchie’s “execution was completed according to protocol.” These conflicting accounts underscore the value of having media witnesses available to provide independent accounts of executions.
The importance of media access to executions and official records was also highlighted when a botched firing squad execution in South Carolina was only revealed to the public after Mikal Mahdi’s attorneys shared autopsy information with the press. Pathologists reported that not only did Mr. Mahdi have two wounds as opposed to the anticipated three wounds from three South Carolina Corrections Department (SCDC) shooters, but also that they missed the intended target over his heart, prolonging his death.

III. The death penalty remains extremely expensive, but almost all costs are routinely hidden from the public.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun revealed in June that the state spent $1.175 million on drugs for two executions, nearly half of which ($600,000 worth) expired before they could be used. Gov. Braun indicated that he does not intend to purchase more drugs, saying, “I think, $300,000 a pop that has a 90-day shelf life — I’m not going to be putting it on the shelf and then letting them expire.” His comments came after the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported that the state had spent over $900,000 on execution drugs. The Capital Chronicle was only able to obtain records of execution costs after filing a lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections.
In court filings, Idaho officials revealed that the state spent $200,000 on execution drugs that expired before use, and the creation of a new facility for firing squad executions is expected to cost over $1 million.
Records obtained by The Tennessean showed that Tennessee spent $600,000 on execution drugs between 2017 and 2025. Tennessee performed two lethal injection executions during that period.
A Wyandotte County, Kansas judge found that “the death penalty is more costly than any other punishment in every state examined including Kansas” and noted that “initial trial costs alone are approximately $226,000 more per case when the death penalty is sought.” Wyandotte County alone, Judge Klapper noted, has “incurred $4,289,022 in additional cost for capital cases from 1994 to present.”

IV. State legislation to expand the death penalty and adopt new methods is concentrated in a small minority of states (five).
Florida, which has carried out more executions this year than any other state, also enacted the most death penalty legislation. Florida lawmakers enacted five death penalty bills, all intended to expand the use of capital punishment. One new law allows Florida to use any execution method “not deemed unconstitutional.” Since the U.S. Supreme Court has never found a method of execution to be unconstitutional, the new law will permit almost any method chosen by state officials. The other laws include provisions to add new aggravating circumstances, a mandatory death sentence for “unauthorized aliens” convicted of capital crimes, and new capital offenses. The Supreme Court declared mandatory death sentences unconstitutional in 1976.
Two states, Arkansas and Idaho, enacted changes to their execution protocols. Arkansas adopted nitrogen asphyxiation as an execution method. An Arkansas official will be solely responsible for determining whether prisoners will be executed by nitrogen gas or lethal injection. Idaho adopted legislation that will make the firing squad its primary method of execution, and lethal injection a secondary option.
Idaho and Oklahoma made sexual assaults of children death-eligible offenses, joining Florida and Tennessee as the only states that permit the death penalty for non-homicide crimes in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. To date, no one has been sentenced to death under any of these new laws. Louisiana also added a new aggravating circumstance, for the murder of a “person with infirmities.”
Three states adopted bills changing their death penalty procedures. Georgia revised its much-criticized evidentiary standard for determining when a person has an intellectual disability, bringing it in line with other death penalty states. Oklahoma modified its process for determining competency for execution, requiring trial courts to render decisions before the execution date. Louisiana restricted the circumstances under which prisoners may raise claims of innocence.

V. Executions and new death sentences demonstrate persistent concerns about racial disparities.
Only one of the 25 people executed in the first half of 2025 was executed for killing a person of color: Demetrius Frazier, a Black man executed in Alabama for the murder of a Black woman. The other 24 people executed were convicted of killing a total of 32 white victims. White victims therefore made up 96.7% of the victims in the crimes that resulted in executions in 2025. Across all executions since 1976, 75% of victims in the underlying crimes are white. Seven of the 25 people executed (28%) were people of color. One was mixed race, and the rest were white.
The new death sentences imposed this year show even greater racial disparities. Eight of the ten people sentenced to death (80%) are people of color.
Eight additional execution dates are currently scheduled to occur before the end of this year. DPI’s 2025 Year End Report will cover these and the other death penalty related issues in December.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/mid-year-review-2025-new-death-sentences-remain-low-amidst-increase-in-executions