Florida's year of executions masks broader discontent with the death penalty

Florida's year of executions masks broader discontent with the death penalty Beneath an alarming number of executions in 2025, there are signs of continued growing opposition. Also: USA Today's ICE propaganda. And, for paid subscribers: Closing my tabs. America is far less interested in the death penalty than President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s actions this year suggest. Source: Death Penalty Information Center On his first day back in office, Trump told America that he was “restoring the death penalty.” In an executive order, Trump claimed, “Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens. ... Our Founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order in response to such evil.“ The false premise and false aims aside, it is true that the death penalty has been more present in the U.S. this year - a stark turnabout from former president Joe Biden’s decision to commute most of the death sentences of those on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole in the closing days of 2024. By the end of this week - if the final two scheduled executions of 2025, in Georgia and Florida, are not stopped - 48 people will have been executed in a dozen states this year. Although that 15-year high has been used by supporters of capital punishment like Trump to claim a reinvigorated support for the punishment, the Death Penalty Information Center highlighted - along with the publication of its end-of-year report published on Monday - that “pub­lic opin­ion polls record­ed his­tor­i­cally low sup­port for the death penal­ty, and the high­est oppo­si­tion in 50 years.” At the same time, DPIC also noted that those public opinion numbers aren’t just opinion. The discomfort is also reflected in new death sentences: There were 22 people sentenced to death in 2025 - a continued low number that represents about 10% of the number of death sentences handed down yearly three decades ago. As DPIC detailed, however, even that 22 number is the result of two states that allow non-unanimous juries to recommend death at the sentencing phase: Only 14 juries recommended death sentences unanimously this year. Despite the low number of new death sentences, the execution number is alarming. Nearly two times as many executions are likely to have taken place this year over last year’s 25 executions. But, even the disturbing “48 executions” number paints a deceptive picture. If Florida kills Frank Walls on Thursday, the state under DeSantis’s leadership will have carried out more executions than the next four states combined at 19 executions. The “dozen states” figure similarly paints a deceptive picture. Most of those executions - 34 of the 48, if both scheduled executions take place this week - took place in just four states: Florida’s executions and five each in Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas. In contrast, a majority of the states that have...

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