Florida was set Thursday to carry out a record-tying 19th execution of the year in an unusual instance of three states administering the death penalty on the same day.
Indiana had earlier executed a man for killing two children in a house fire in 2010, and in Alabama, a man was set to die by lethal injection later Thursday for his conviction in a fatal home robbery.
The trio of scheduled executions was taking place the same day California Gov. Gavin
Newsom announced he will commute all 548 death sentences in his state, saying that he believes “state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values."
The announcement was a sharp contrast to Florida, where outgoing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made aggressive use of the death penalty like few other governors. His state has carried out more than half of the 33 executions so far this year in the U.S., where capital punishment has come under renewed scrutiny following Tennessee's failed execution of Christa Pike in October.
It is the second time since August that three states were set to carry out executions on a single day, although it remains unusual. Prior to this year, the last time it happened was 2010.
DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has said he wants to bring justice to families who have waited decades for death sentences to be carried out. He signed the death warrants that led to a state record of 19 executions in 2025 and would not only tie the record with Thursday's execution but surpass it with two more executions set for later this year.
Jesse Guardado confessed and quickly pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman inside her Walton County home in 2004 before stealing her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to buy drugs. She had helped him get a job and housing.
A federal appeals court in 2024 said that Guardado, now 64, had received a “full and fair” hearing during the death penalty phase of his case. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his last appeal without comment Thursday afternoon.
In 1991, Michael Taylor, then 19, fatally beat two people, ages 83 and 79, with a metal bar during a robbery in their Gadsden, Alabama, home. Police arrested him with the victims’ Cadillac an hour away in Birmingham.
Death penalty opponents had urged Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to reduce Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, noting his age and immaturity at the time of the killings. She declined.
“If the state kills Michael, it is not the 19-year-old who made the worst mistake of his life who it kills. But the mature, well-respected, God-fearing man sitting in that cell today,” said Esther Brown of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty.
The state plans to execute Taylor, 54, by lethal injection after a judge declared a nitrogen gas method unconstitutional. His attorneys objected to the last-minute switch to lethal injection since he selected nitrogen gas as his method several years ago, but a judge ruled against Taylor.
In Indiana, Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. at the state prison in Michigan City, said Noelle Russell, spokesperson at the Department of Correction. She said he had no final words.
Weisheit had acknowledged killing his girlfriend’s two children in a house fire in the Evansville area in 2010 but had hoped Gov. Mike Braun would grant clemency and change his sentence to life in prison. Braun declined.
Lawyers failed to persuade Braun, a Republican, to allow Weisheit to undergo brain scans in an effort to reinforce their argument that he has a history of head injuries and mental health problems that should foreclose execution.
Weisheit's last objection centered on the state's planned use of lethal drugs purchased from a pharmacy that is facing a disciplinary hearing next week at the Indiana Pharmacy Board. The Indiana Supreme Court declined to intervene Wednesday night, though two of the five justices wanted a 10-day stay for more information about the drugs' expiration and storage.
The execution provided “long-awaited justice for Alyssa Lynch and her brother Caleb, two innocent children whose lives were stolen in an act of unspeakable cruelty," Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said.
Americans have long been divided over the death penalty, with nearly half of states banning capital punishment outright and just a handful of others carrying out most of the nation’s executions each year.
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Fischer reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Chandler from Montgomery, Alabama. Associated Press reporter Ed White contributed from Detroit.
