Tennessee execution fails

Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike, a woman on death row for decades after killing a classmate as a teenager.

Death penalty support declining

Support for the death penalty has been declining for decades, and for a long time the number of executions was falling too. But since twenty twenty-one, executions have been increasing again.

Florida drives the surge

The recent surge in executions has been driven largely by one state: Florida. According to Pamela Colloff, who covers criminal justice for ProPublica, forty percent of the executions conducted in the US last year were…

One person decides

Among active death penalty states, Florida is unique in that one person determines who receives an execution date from the hundreds of men on death row. That person is Governor Ron DeSantis.

“Among active death penalty states right now, Florida is unique in that one person determines, from the hundreds of men on death row, who will receive an execution date, and what that execution date is.”

No chronological order

DeSantis sets execution dates with no rhyme or reason. Men convicted when Gerald Ford was president in the nineteen seventies sit alongside others, but dates are not set chronologically among death-eligible prisoners.

Speculation and uncertainty

There is a speculation game among victims' families, prisoners and their advocates about who will be executed next. Men can sit on death row for decades with this uncertainty hanging over them, a Florida phenomenon.

From purgatory to assembly line

Florida's death row has transformed from a purgatory where people stay for a long time into something closer to an assembly line.

Sixteen executions this year

In this year so far, sixteen men have been executed in Florida. Texas, the next state with the highest number of executions, has executed six men in that same time. Florida is the ultimate outlier.

DNA evidence granted too late

When a death warrant is written, numerous legal maneuvers and next steps kick into gear in the courts.

Death watch cells

Once you receive an execution date, you are taken from death row to death watch, roughly thirty feet from the execution chamber.There are three cells.

The assembly line pattern

When Pamela Colloff was reporting in the spring, all three death watch cells were filled.

Mental torture of proximity

Being thirty feet from where you will be put to death is a unique kind of mental torture.

Uncertainty for families

Victims' families never know how long they will wait.Are they going to wait one month or fifteen years?There is no rhyme or reason to the process, creating total chaos including for the families of victims.

Florida's wrongful convictions

Florida is the leading place in America by a mile in terms of the number of executions and has a very large death row.

Many more likely innocent

Thirty men in Florida have been given execution dates and now walk free. Given how incredibly difficult it is to overturn a wrongful conviction, many more innocent people likely remain on death row.