The 2026 U.S. Executions

The story so far

As of August 13, 2026

A year of renewed state executions has put capital punishment back in the foreground, with Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama carrying out lethal injections. Governors and prison systems are moving signed warrants through the final steps while death row prisoners and their lawyers press for stays and clemency and victims’ families seek finality. What is at stake is how the machinery runs after years of pauses and drug shortages in many places, and whether courts will slow or reshape that pace as late claims arrive.

The year opened with Florida setting the tempo, executing multiple prisoners between January and March, including Ronald Heath, Melvin Trotter, Billy Leon Kearse, and Michael Lee King. Arizona widened the map in May with Leroy Dean McGill. Florida then resumed in late July with a rare double‑execution day anchored by the execution of former police officer James Duckett. Oklahoma has been active as well, executing Kendrick Simpson earlier in the year for a 2006 double murder.

The alignment of calendars produced a pivot point on August 13, when three states put prisoners to death on the same day for the first time since 2010. Tennessee executed Anthony Darrell Hines in Nashville, closing a 40‑year case for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jenkins. Oklahoma executed Carlos Cuesta‑Rodriguez for the 2003 murder of Olimpia Fisher. Alabama executed Jeremy Williams for the 2021 capital murder of 5‑year‑old Kamarie Holland.

The through line is not just more executions but tighter clustering and a willingness to proceed despite unresolved issues in individual cases. Florida’s recent cases illustrate the kinds of fights that have not halted the line: a disputed claim of intellectual disability in Trotter’s case, traumatic brain injury arguments in King’s case, and contested DNA testing around Duckett’s case. The span between crime and execution now ranges from Hines’s four decades to Williams’s five years, which shows both a clearing of long‑pending sentences and the capacity to move newer cases, even as challenges to lethal‑injection protocols, drug access, and prisoner competence remain live in the courts.