For the first time in 16 years, three inmates in three different states are scheduled to be executed on the exact same day. But while politicians push to speed up the process, regular citizens in the jury box are pulling the brakes.
There is a strange contradiction playing out in courtrooms across the country right now. The people in charge are moving faster to carry out death sentences, but the regular folks asked to hand them down are quietly refusing.
On Thursday, three men will be put to death in Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma. It is the first time in 16 years that three executions happened on the exact same day.
The men are very different. One fired his lawyers and asked to die. Another is 71 and asked for no mercy. But the case in Tennessee is drawing the most nervous attention.
Anthony Darrell Hines is 66 and bedridden. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection using the exact same drug protocol that failed badly just a few months ago. Back in May, prison staff spent over an hour trying to execute another man, Tony Von Carruthers. Witnesses watched blood stream down his chest as he groaned and told guards he was in pain. Governor Bill Lee later insisted the execution was not botched, just that the doctor could not find a vein.
Whether the procedures will go smoothly remains to be seen, with last-minute legal appeals still moving through the courts.
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The push to clear out death row is largely political. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis changed the law so a jury only needs eight votes to recommend death, instead of all twelve. Robin Maher, who tracks these numbers for the Death Penalty Information Center, did not mince words about the situation.
“He is the reason we are seeing a record number of executions,” she said, noting Florida accounted for nearly half of all executions last year.
But the public mood is moving the other way. Support for the death penalty is at its lowest point since the 1970s. More telling is what happens inside the jury room. In the 1990s, juries handed down over 300 death sentences a year. Last year, they only handed down 23.
Maher pointed out what that drop actually means on the ground. “These are regular citizens… deciding what sentence fits those crimes,” she said. “Those juries are increasingly saying that a death sentence is not the right answer.”
State prosecutors still push hard for it. Florida State Attorney William Sheiner told local media that for the worst offenders, “their punishment is frankly earned.”
The machinery of the state is moving faster. The people are stepping back. Somewhere between the governor’s desk and the jury box, the country is trying to figure out what justice actually looks like today.
