Florida sets modern U.S. execution record with 19 in 2025

Florida executed 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer on June 26, making the state the national outlier in capital punishment and the source of 19 of the 47 executions carried out in the United States in 2025. Spencer was the oldest person executed in modern Florida history, and by that date the state had already carried out nine executions in 2026.

The 2025 total was the highest in Florida history and more than double the state’s previous modern-era record of eight executions, set in 1984 and matched in 2014. Florida’s executions last year averaged one every 16 days from February through December. Before Florida’s surge, only Texas had ever exceeded 18 executions in a single year, doing so in 2009.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has authorized 28 executions since taking office in 2019, but Florida carried out none in 2020, 2021 or 2022 before the pace accelerated in 2023, 2024 and then sharply in 2025. Unlike most states, where courts and prosecutors play a larger role in setting execution dates, Florida’s governor alone signs death warrants, giving DeSantis direct control over the timetable. He has defended the pace as justice for victims’ families and argued that faster executions could deter crime.

Death Penalty Information Center data showed just 23 new death sentences in 2025, while capital juries recommended life over death in 56% of sentencing-phase cases. Gallup put public support for the death penalty at 52 percent, a 50-year low, with opposition at 44 percent, the highest level since 1966.

Florida also broadened its death-penalty laws in 2025, enacting five new measures that expanded eligibility and execution methods. Critics, including Florida Democrats and Catholic leaders, say the governor has turned the punishment into a political signal rather than a measured legal response. Florida has had 30 death sentences overturned since the 1970s, the highest number of exonerations in the country, and inmates spend an average of 22.6 years on death row, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics data.