How executions have risen under Trump despite wave of states abolishing death penalty

Executions have risen sharply since President Donald Trump returned to power in January 2025, with 47 carried out last year – the highest annual total since 2009 – and another 28 so far in 2026.While they are far from the 1999 peak of 98 executions, the recent increase comes despite a series of states abolishing the death penalty in the 21st century. Only 27 states currently carry out executions, with 11 dropping it in the last 20 years – most recently New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia and Washington in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023 respectively.This year, executions have only been carried out in six states; 15 in Florida; six in Texas; three in Oklahoma; two in Alabama, one in Tennessee and one in Arizona, the Death Penalty Information Center said.Executions have risen sharply since President Donald Trump’s return to power, hitting 47 in 2025 compared to 25 under Joe Biden in 2024 (AP)Among those put to death was Melvin Trotter, 65, who was convicted over the fatal stabbing of grocery of grocery store owner Virgie Langford in 1986; Billy Leon Kearse, 53, who shot dead a police officer with his own service weapon in 1991; and Harold Gene Lucas, 74, who shot dead 16-year-old Jill Piper in 1976 for rejecting his romantic advances. All three died by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke.The person most recently put to death was Ker’Sean Ramey, 41, who likewise died by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, on September 24 after being convicted of killing three people in an attempted robbery in 2005. And on Wednesday, Christa Pike, 50, is set to be executed in Nashville, Tennessee, making her the first woman to die at the hands of that state in 206 years and just the 19th woman to be executed in the U.S. since 1976. Pike was convicted of torturing and murdering a teenage love in 1995.Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death in 1996. She is due to be executed this week (AP)A dozen more executions are currently scheduled before the year is out.Trump has increased the number of executions in his second term, when compared to the four years of Joe Biden’s presidency. While the Democrat was in the White House, the death penalty was carried out 11 times in 2021, 18 times in 2022, 24 times in 2023 and 25 times in 2024.The Biden administration also imposed a moratorium on federal capital punishment while the Department of Justice carried out a review and ultimately commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 people on death row. Trump, by contrast, has expressed support for the penalty, signing a slew of executive orders relating to it within hours of taking his oath of office, including one directing the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful action” to help states obtain lethal injection drugs for the purpose of carrying out executions. Melvin Trotter was put to death in Florida in February, one of 15 people to be executed in the state this year (Florida Department of Corrections)As an influential private citizen, he notoriously called for the death penalty to be administered to the Central Park Five in a series of New York newspaper editorials in 1989, only for the quintet to be completely exonerated of the crime of which they were accused. As president, he has called for anybody convicted of murder in D.C. to be killed, despite the district not practising capital punishment, calling the threat “a very strong preventative.”Despite the relative rise in executions carried out under Trump, the number of new death sentences handed down are still far below those of previous decades, with 23 ordered in 2025, the DPI notes, compared to the more than 100 seen annually throughout the 2000s and the peak of 325 recorded in 1986.Public sentiment appears to be with the president on the issue, with a Pew Research Center poll from July finding that 66 percent of Americans were in favor of capital punishment for convicted murderers, a rise from 61 percent in April 2021. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was also given the death penalty in Florida this year for shooting dead a 16-year-old girl in 1976 (Florida Department of Corrections)The same poll found that 68 percent found it morally justified to execute a convicted killer, with only 28 percent expressing disagreement.However, there was doubt about Trump’s conviction that it serves as a meaningful deterrent, with 59 percent saying they did not believe the threat of execution would dissuade people from committing serious crimes.