A look at the status of US executions in 2025

Six men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and 12 other people are scheduled to be put to death in six states during the remainder of 2025.

Through March 20, three men are set to be executed in Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma. The other states with scheduled executions this year are Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, though Ohio's governor has been routinely postponing the actions as their dates near.

The most recent U.S. execution took place Friday, when Brad Sigmon, 67, died by firing squad in South Carolina. Sigmon, who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat in 2001, was the first U.S. prisoner in 15 years to die by that method. Sigmon chose it; he saw it as preferable to the electric chair or lethal injection.

Sigmon was the second man to be executed in South Carolina this year. Alabama, Florida and Texas also have carried out executions this year.

If all executions scheduled through March 20 take place, nine people will have been executed in the first three months of the year. That's the most in a three-month period since 10 people were executed from August 2024 through October 2024, according to records compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Louisiana had been scheduled to execute a man by nitrogen gas on March 18, but a federal judge issued an order Tuesday halting the execution. An appeals court issued a stay of execution Tuesday for a Texas man who was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday.

A look at the executions scheduled for the rest of the year, by state:

Texas

Texas uses lethal injection to execute its death row inmates.

Moises Sandoval Mendoza, 41, is scheduled to be executed on April 23. Mendoza strangled a 20-year-old woman in Collin County in 2004. He took her body to a field behind his house and kept her there for several days until questioned by police, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Mendoza then drove the body to a dirt pit in Collin County, set her body on fire and buried her under a brush pile.

Matthew Johnson's execution is set for May 20. In 2012, Johnson walked into a gas station with a plastic bottle filled with bleach and continued behind the sales counter where a woman was working. He took cigarettes, lighters and cash before pouring the bleach on her and setting her on fire before walking out. The worker died later at a hospital as a result of her injuries. Johnson is 49.

Richard Lee Tabler, 46, was executed on Feb. 13 for killing a strip club manager and another man near Killeen in central Texas in 2004.

Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, was executed on Feb. 5. He was convicted of the 2011 killing of the Rev. Clint Dobson, a 28-year-old pastor who was beaten, strangled and suffocated with a plastic bag inside a Baptist church in Arlington.

Arizona

Aaron Gunches, 53, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on March 19 in what would be Arizona’s first use of the death penalty in over two years. Gunches was convicted in the 2002 shooting death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.

Earlier this month, Gunches passed up a chance to ask for a reprieve from his death sentence. He did not participate in a hearing before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, which noted on the record that he has waived his right to ask for a sentence commutation or a reprieve.

Gunches would be the first person to be executed in a state with a Democrat serving as governor since Virginia did so in 2017, when Terry McAuliffe was in charge. Arizona's current governor is Katie Hobbs.

Oklahoma

Wendell Grissom, 56, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on March 20. Grissom and a co-defendant were convicted of killing Amber Matthews, 23, and wounding her friend at the friend's home in Blaine County.

Oklahoma's Pardon and Parole Board voted in February to deny recommending clemency for Grissom. Grissom’s attorneys did not dispute Grissom’s guilt, but argued that he suffered from brain damage that was never presented to a jury. They also told the board Grissom has always accepted responsibility and expressed remorse for Matthews’ killing, even writing an apology to the woman’s family during his first interview with police.

Florida

Edward Thomas James, 63, is scheduled to be executed on March 20. James was convicted of killing a woman and raping and killing her 8-year-old-granddaughter in Seminole County in 1993.

Michael Tanzi, 48, is scheduled to be executed April 8. He was convicted of kidnapping a woman in Miami and later strangling her and leaving her body in the Florida Keys.

James Dennis Ford was put to death in February after being convicted of murdering a couple in 1997 in Charlotte County.

Tennessee

Earlier this month, Tennessee's Supreme Court set execution dates for four inmates this year.

Oscar Smith, 74, is scheduled to be executed May 22. Smith was convicted of fatally stabbing and shooting his estranged wife and her teenage sons at their Nashville home in 1989.

Smith was within minutes of being executed in 2022, when Gov. Bill Lee issued a sudden reprieve. The stay came after Smith’s attorney requested the results of required purity and potency tests for the lethal injection drugs that were to be used on him. It turned out a required test was never done.

An independent review later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been fully tested.

The Tennessee Department of Correction issued a new execution protocol in late December that will utilize the single drug pentobarbital.

Byron Black, 68, is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 5. Black was convicted in 1989 of three counts of first-degree murder for the shooting deaths of his girlfriend, Angela Clay, and her two daughters.

Donald Middlebrooks, 62, is set for execution on Sept. 24. Middlebrooks was convicted of torture and murder in the slaying of 14-year-old Kerrick Majors in Nashville in 1987.

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

Ohio

Ohio has two executions set for later this year, with Timothy Coleman scheduled to die on Oct. 30 and Kareem Jackson scheduled to be executed on Dec. 10.

However, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has been routinely postponing the actions as their dates approach. He most recently did so in February, when he postponed into 2028 three executions scheduled for June, July and August of this year. DeWine has said publicly that he does not anticipate any further executions will happen on his watch as governor, which runs through 2026.

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Associated Press reporter Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.