On Tuesday, the state of Florida executed Mark Allen Geralds, convicted of a murder, raising its annual record to 18 executions since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
Geralds, 58, was executed at 6:15 p.m. local time (23:15 GMT) at Florida State Prison near Starke, in the northern part of the state, the Florida Department of Corrections reported.
Geralds was convicted in 1989 for the murder of Tressa Pettibone in Bay County, on Florida's west coast, during a robbery of her home. The victim was found stabbed and beaten on the floor of her kitchen following an armed robbery and home invasion.
Florida had not executed more than eight people in a single year since 2014, when it last reached that number since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Geralds's execution adds to a wave of death sentences this year in the United States that exceeds forty. To date, 45 people have been executed in the U.S. in 2025, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Florida leads the country with 18 executions, followed by Texas and Alabama with five each, and South Carolina with four.
Another inmate convicted in Florida, 58-year-old serial killer and rapist Frank Athen Walls, is scheduled to be executed on December 18 at Florida State Prison, which would increase the state's executions to 19.
Florida authorities have made several decisions in recent years to facilitate the application of the death penalty. Among them is a law passed in 2023 that made the state the only one, along with Alabama, where a unanimous jury decision is not required to recommend the death penalty.
Florida is also the state that requires the fewest jury votes to recommend a death sentence: eight out of twelve are sufficient.
