America is seeing an uptick in executions

Florida executed its 14th prisoner for the year on Tuesday, adding to a post-COVID surge in capital punishment that drove more executions last year than any since 2009.

The big picture: Even as fewer courts sentence defendants to death and more than half of the states have banned or at least temporarily halted the practice, the Trump administration has overtly cheered on the death penalty.

• "The increased number of executions last year reflected the enthusiasm and the urging of this administration to increase use of the death penalty, and the acquiescence of some state officials to that political pressure," Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robin Maher tells Axios.

By the numbers: Forty-seven people were executed last year, 19 of whom were in Florida, according to the DPI's database dating back to 1977.

• 2026 is falling behind that pace. Twenty-four people have been executed this year, with ten more scheduled.

Zoom in: Florida has led the way with executions, including two men being put to death within hours of one another back in July. It was the first time the state had done so in more than six decades.

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed death warrants at a rapid pace, setting off the spree at a level unseen in decades.
• "I think we'll probably end up having done more [executions] than any administration in the history of the state of Florida," he said in July, adding, "I'm not like taking any pride in that, because it's a weighty thing."

Catch up quick: While there has not been a federal execution since 2021, President Trump signed a day-one executive order instructing his attorney general to pursue the death penalty and ensure states have a sufficient supply of drugs for lethal injections.

• His approach was a sharp departure from the Biden administration, which imposed a moratorium on federal capital punishment amid a DOJ review and commuted the sentences for 37 of the 40 people on federal death row.
• Trump, on the other hand, oversaw a historic use of capital punishment in his first term, with 13 executions in roughly six months. Currently, only three people are on federal death row, none of whom have exhausted their appeals, Maher explains.
• While Trump's DOJ has pushed to authorize new federal capital cases, none have gone to trial, she adds.

Yes, but: DPI's data doesn't point to a wave of executions that could rival '90s or 2000s levels. Fewer than 25 people were sentenced to death in 2025 per DPI's tracker, compared to numbers well into the 100s in the 2000s.

• "The majority of capital juries are imposing life sentences, not death sentences," Maher says, adding she's doubtful the country will ever return to the high numbers of executions in the '90s and 2000s.

Friction point: That aligns with slipping public support for the death penalty, per Gallup's trend, which hit its lowest level since 1972 (52%) last year.

• But Pew Research Center polling from July found that about two-thirds of Americans (66%) favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, up from 60% in April 2021. Still, a majority (59%) say the death penalty is not a crime deterrent.
• "The realization in the public that the system is getting it wrong quite often has really influenced public opinion and has affected the support for the death penalty," Maher says, noting that since 1973, more than 200 former death-row pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed due to wrongful convictions.

What we're watching: Florida is set to add to its tally again, with an execution set for September 10.

Go deeper: How the death penalty works