A look at the status of US executions in 2025

Twenty-three men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and seven other people are scheduled to be put to death in five states during the remainder of 2025.

A South Carolina man's execution on Friday evening was the state's sixth in the past nine months. Stephen Stanko was put to death after a federal judge ruled that the man's lawyers didn't have evidence there were problems with the state's lethal injection process.

A day earlier, an Oklahoma man was put to death after an appeals court lifted a temporary stay of execution issued by a district court. That followed the execution Tuesday of two men in Florida and in Alabama.

So far this year, executions have been carried out in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

States with scheduled executions this year are Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, though Ohio's governor has routinely postponed the actions as the dates near.

All of 2024 saw 25 executions, matching the number for 2018. Those were the highest totals since 28 executions in 2015.

Here's a look at recent executions and those scheduled for the rest of the year, by state:

Anthony Wainwright, 54, died by lethal injection Tuesday for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Carmen Gayheart in 1994. Gayheart was abducted from a grocery store parking lot with another man in Lake City, Florida.

Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, is set to die by lethal injection June 24. Gudinas was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death for raping and killing Michelle McGrath near a bar. He would be the seventh person to be executed in Florida this year.

Alabama

Gregory Hunt, 65, died by nitrogen gas Tuesday for the 1988 beating death of Karen Lane. She was found dead in an apartment in Cordova. Hunt had been dating Lane for about a month.

Alabama last year became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen gas. Nitrogen has now been used in five executions — four in Alabama and one in Louisiana. The method involves using a gas mask to force a person to breathe pure nitrogen gas, depriving them of the oxygen needed to stay alive.

John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, died by lethal injection Thursday after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing a Tulsa woman in 1999.

A judge temporarily delayed the execution on Monday after Hanson's lawyers argued that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month before the state's Pardon and Parole Board. They claimed board member Sean Malloy was biased because he worked for the district attorney's office when Hanson was being prosecuted.

Malloy has said he never worked on Hanson's case at the time and was unfamiliar with it before the clemency hearing. Malloy was one of three members who voted 3-2 to deny Hanson a clemency recommendation.

On Wednesday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals lifted the stay. The court wrote that the district judge didn't have the authority to issue the stay.

Hanson was transferred to Oklahoma custody in March by federal officials following through on President Donald Trump's sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty.

Stanko was executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner in April 2006.

Stanko, 57, was also on death row for killing a woman he was living with and raping her teenage daughter.

Stanko chose to die by lethal injection instead of in the electric chair or by firing squad.

Mikal Mahdi was executed by firing squad in South Carolina on April 11. Mahdi's lawyers released autopsy results that show the shots that killed him barely hit his heart and suggested he was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly.

The state Supreme Court rejected a request from Stanko's lawyers to delay his execution so they could get more information about the death of Mahdi. A doctor hired by the defense said Mahdi suffered a lingering death of about 45 seconds to a minute because his heart was not destroyed as planned.

Mississippi

Mississippi's longest-serving death row inmate is set to be executed on June 25.

Richard Gerald Jordan, 78, was sentenced to death in 1976 for kidnapping and killing a woman in a forest. Jordan has filed multiple death sentence appeals, which have been denied.

Mississippi allows death sentences to be carried out using lethal injection, nitrogen gas, electrocution or firing squad.

Tennessee

Harold Nichols, 64, is also scheduled to die by lethal injection on Dec. 11. Nichols was convicted of rape and first-degree felony murder in the 1988 death of Karen Pulley in Hamilton County.

Texas

Blaine Milam, 35, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 25. Milam was convicted of killing his girlfriend's 13-month-old daughter during what the couple had said was part of an ''exorcism'' in Rusk County in East Texas in December 2008.

Milam's girlfriend, Jesseca Carson, was also convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Ohio

However, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine already has postponed into 2028 three executions that were scheduled for June, July and August of this year. DeWine has said that he does not anticipate any further executions will happen during his term, which runs through 2026.

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