Florida concludes 2025 with a record of 19 executions in a year, accounting for 40% of all executions in the United States. Thus, Florida became the state with the most executions this year, significantly outpacing Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas, which each had five. A total of 47 executions were recorded in the country, the majority by lethal injection. Other methods included the controversial nitrogen gas, used in five cases in Alabama and Louisiana, and a firing squad in South Carolina, applied in three cases. The final execution of the year was that of Frank Athen Walls, a 58-year-old man sentenced to death in 1992 for a double murder. His execution was carried out on Thursday at the Florida State Prison. This record was made possible by the easing of criteria for applying the death penalty in recent years and the policy of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who shows no intention of slowing down executions. Currently, Florida has 265 inmates on death row, and this number is expected to grow.
Florida, one of 27 U.S. states that retains the death penalty, set a new record since its reinstatement in the country in 1976. The previous record was eight executions per year, set in 1984 and 2014. According to his defense, Walls suffered from medical issues that could have exacerbated his suffering during the execution, but the appellate court rejected the defense's appeal. Notably, since 2023, Florida, along with Alabama, is the only state where a unanimous jury verdict is not required to impose the death penalty; a vote of eight out of twelve jurors is sufficient. The United States has scheduled thirteen executions for next year: six in Ohio, four in Tennessee, and three in Texas.
