Three US states set for same-day executions, a first since 2010

For the first time in nearly 16 years, three US states are scheduled to carry out executions on the same day. Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma have all scheduled lethal injections for Thursday, a convergence that underscores how a small cluster of states continues to drive the nation's use of capital punishment.

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, noted that the simultaneous scheduling is highly unusual, though largely a coincidence. She observed that only a handful of states remain actively involved in executions and new death sentences.

In 2025, eleven states carried out a total of 47 executions, the highest annual figure since 2009. Florida led the surge with 19, followed by Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas with five each. Tennessee performed three, while Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arizona, and Indiana each carried out two. Louisiana and Missouri each had one.

The last time three executions occurred on the same day was January 7, 2010, involving Louisiana, Ohio, and Texas. A similar plan in 2018 fell apart when one inmate received a reprieve and another execution was halted due to IV access problems.

Tennessee's scheduled execution of Anthony Darrell Hines comes just three months after the state aborted another lethal injection due to difficulties establishing an IV line. That failed attempt, involving inmate Tony Carruthers, drew scrutiny to the technical challenges states sometimes face during the procedure.

Hines, 66, has cited his own health problems—including partial paralysis from two strokes—as increasing the risk of complications. His requests for intervention from the governor and courts have been denied. He was convicted of the 1985 stabbing death of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a motel maid in Kingston Springs, and was sentenced to death in 1989 after a re-sentencing.

In Alabama, Jeremy Williams, 42, is scheduled to die by lethal injection for the 2021 rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland. Williams pleaded guilty and has asked that his sentence be carried out. Prosecutors said he offered the girl's mother money for the assault, filmed the attack, and kept the body. He was also charged in 2022 with the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska.

Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey described Williams as having left "a trail of destruction of children." The case is notable for the short time between conviction and execution, which Maher said is unusual. This would be Alabama's first execution of the year, following a halted nitrogen gas procedure in June.

Oklahoma is set to execute Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend, Olimpia Fisher. Prosecutors said he shot her in one eye, waited as she screamed, then fired a fatal shot into the other. The state's Pardon and Parole Board voted against recommending clemency. Cuesta-Rodriguez told the board he did not want clemency and expressed regret, saying he could not have been in his right mind to commit such an act.