Florida Executes 19 in 2025, Pushing US Total to 15-Year High

Public Support Drops to 50-Year Low

Florida put more people to death this year than ever before. The state executed 19 inmates in 2025, more than doubling its previous record of eight set in 2014.

That surge pushed the national total to 48 executions, nearly twice the 25 carried out last year and the highest since 2010. Governor Ron DeSantis signed more death warrants than any Florida governor in modern history.

But here’s the thing: fewer Americans support the death penalty now than at any point in the last five decades, and the reason Florida is clearing its death row so fast has as much to do with politics as it does with justice.

DeSantis Signs Record Death Warrants

Governor Ron DeSantis averaged about two death warrants per month in 2025. Before this year, he had signed just nine during his entire time in office.

From 2020 to 2022, Florida did not execute a single person. DeSantis said he needed time to settle into the job, and then COVID-19 disrupted the prison system.

But in 2023, executions resumed with six.

This year, he more than tripled that number. Critics say he is using the death penalty to build tough-on-crime credentials with a national audience.

Florida Accounts for 40% of Executions

Florida carried out about 40% of all U.S. executions in 2025.

No other state came close. Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas tied for second place with five executions each.

The men Florida executed this year spent an average of 31 years on death row. Some had been waiting since the 1980s.

Frank Walls, the 19th person executed, was convicted for a 1987 double murder and later confessed to three additional killings.

He died by lethal injection on December 18.

Only 11 States Executed Anyone

Of the 27 states that still have the death penalty on the books, just 11 carried out executions in 2025.

Many states with capital punishment laws did not hold a single capital trial this year. Some states have informal moratoriums.

Pennsylvania’s governor has placed a hold on executions.

California, which has the largest death row population in the country with 580 inmates, has not executed anyone since 2006.

The death penalty remains legal in these places, but it is rarely used.

Public Support Drops Below 1972 Level

A Gallup poll from October 2025 found that just 52% of Americans support the death penalty for people convicted of murder.

That is the lowest number since 1972, the year the Supreme Court struck down existing death penalty laws nationwide.

Support peaked at 80% in 1994. Among adults under 35, only 41% now favor capital punishment.

The partisan gap is enormous: 82% of Republicans support the death penalty compared to just 32% of Democrats.

New Death Sentences Keep Declining

Courts handed down just 22 new death sentences in 2025. In 2005, that number was 139.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty less often because capital cases cost more and take longer. Juries are also more reluctant to impose death.

When asked to choose between execution and life without parole this year, more than half of juries chose life.

The decline has been steady for three decades, even as Florida bucks the trend by executing more people than ever.

Trump Orders Executions to Resume

On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general to pursue the death penalty aggressively.

The order lifted a moratorium that had been in place since 2021 under President Biden.

Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates before leaving office, leaving just three civilians and four military prisoners under federal death sentences.

Trump’s order also instructed the Justice Department to help states obtain lethal injection drugs.

DeSantis Says Families Deserve Closure

At a press conference in November, DeSantis said he heard from victims’ families who had been waiting decades for justice.

Some crimes were committed in the 1980s. Appeals dragged on for years. DeSantis said he felt like he was letting families down by not moving faster.

He argued the death penalty could be a strong deterrent if sentences were carried out more quickly.

The average time between sentencing and execution in Florida is about 23 years.

Many Executed Had Serious Vulnerabilities

At least 40 of the people executed in the U.S. this year had what experts call vulnerabilities.

These include brain damage, severe mental illness, childhood trauma, or IQ scores in the intellectually disabled range.

The Supreme Court banned executing people with intellectual disabilities in 2002, but states set their own standards for measuring disability.

Ten military veterans were executed in 2025, the highest number in nearly two decades. Lawyers argued some suffered from PTSD or traumatic brain injuries from their service.

Florida Leads Nation in Wrongful Convictions

Florida has exonerated 30 people from death row since 1973, more than any other state. Illinois is second with 23.

That means roughly one person has been cleared for every four people Florida has executed. Many exonerations involved prosecutorial misconduct, false testimony, or unreliable forensic evidence.

Clifford Williams spent 42 years in prison, including time on death row, before being exonerated in 2019.

Defense attorneys say the state’s overburdened public defender system and broad death penalty criteria contribute to the problem.

Tommy Zeigler Has Been on Death Row 49 Years

As of December 2025, 251 people remain on Florida’s death row. All but one are men. One hundred fifty-four are white and 86 are Black.

Tommy Zeigler has been there longer than anyone, sentenced to death in 1976 for killing his wife, her parents, and another man at his family’s furniture store near Orlando.

Many believe he is innocent.

His lawyers are still fighting for DNA testing they say will prove it. Another inmate, Harold Gene Lucas, has waited nearly 50 years.

His victim’s family still does not know why his name has never been called.

The Disconnect Between Policy and Public Opinion

Florida executed more people in one year than it had in any year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Meanwhile, polling shows most Americans under 55 oppose capital punishment. New death sentences are at near-record lows.

Juries increasingly choose life over death. Yet executions nearly doubled nationwide.

Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center called it a disconnect between what the public wants and what elected officials are doing.

The numbers tell two different stories, and neither one is finished.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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