DEATH PENALTY USA: America has already surpassed 2024 executions

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The American death machine is oiled up and rolling.

So far in 2025, the United States has already surpassed the total number of condemned killers dispatched in 2024.

Twenty-eight men have boarded the Night Train to Nowheresville in court-ordered executions. Nine more are scheduled to be put to death in seven states during the remainder of 2025.

Tennessee murderer Byron Black, 69, got the big adios on Tuesday morning. Witnesses said the triple killer appeared in agony.

Black had a defibrillator implanted in his heart, and his attorneys said the device could shock him several times once the lethal chemicals took effect. He was convicted of the 1998 triple murder of his girlfriend and her two children.

Preceding Black was Edward Zakrzewski, who was executed at the Florida State Prison in Starke on July 31. Zakrzewski murdered his wife and two children more than 20 years ago. He was the Sunshine State’s ninth execution of 2025.

Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas and Utah have also scheduled executions for later this year. So far, executions have been carried out in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

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There were 25 executions in 2024 — the highest number of executions since 2014, when 35 inmates   were put to death.

John Blume, director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project, told the Associated Press that the increase in use of the ultimate punishment can be attributed to law-and-order Republican governors and attorneys general. Among their initiatives to expedite death has been slashing decades of appeals.

Every execution but one was at the hands of a Republican governor.

Having President Donald Trump in the White House has spurred prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

THESE ARE THE CONDEMNED SLATED FOR THE REST OF 2025.

TENNESSEE

HAROLD NICHOLS

411: Nichols, 64, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Dec. 11. He was convicted of rape and first-degree felony murder in the 1988 death of Karen Pulley in Hamilton County.

FLORIDA

KAYLE BATES

411: Bates, 67, is slated to die on Aug. 19. He will be executed for the first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted sexual battery in the June 14, 1982, Bay County killing of Janet White.

CURTIS WINDOM

411: Windom, 59,  shot a man over a $2,000 debt, then murdered the mother of his child and the woman’s mother in February 1992 in Orlando. He is scheduled to die Aug. 28.

ALABAMA

DAVID LEE ROBERTS

411: POSTPONED. Roberts had been slated to die on Aug. 21, for the murder of Annetra Jones in 1992 while he was a houseguest at Jones’ boyfriend’s home. A delay was issued so Roberts can have a psychiatric evaluation.

GEOFFREY T. WEST

411: West, 49, is on the roster to die by nitrogen gas on Sept. 25 for the killing of convenience store clerk Margaret Parrish Berry during a 1997 robbery in Attalla.

UTAH

RALPH LEROY MENZIES

411: Menzies, 67, is scheduled to die by firing squad on Sept. 5. He would become only the sixth U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977. He now has dementia but has been on death row for nearly four decades for abducting and killing mother of three, Maurine Hunsaker, 26, in 1986. Menzies was ruled to “consistently and rationally” understand why he is facing execution.

TEXAS

BLAINE MILAM

411: Milam, 35, is scheduled to die via needle on Sept. 25. He was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter during what the couple had said was part of an “exorcism” in Rusk County in East Texas in 2008. Mom got life.

ROBERT ROBERSON

411: Roberson, 58, could become the first person in the U.S. to be put to death for a murder conviction tied to shaken baby syndrome. He was convicted of the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. He is on the roster for Oct. 16.

INDIANA

ROY LEE WARD

411: Ward was convicted of raping and killing a 15-year-old girl in 2001. His death date is Oct. 10 but that date could change.

MISSOURI

LANCE C. SHOCKLEY

411: Shockley was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Dewayne Graham outside his home in Carter County in 2005. Graham had been investigating the killer for involuntary manslaughter. Big day is Oct. 14.

OHIO

411: Republican Gov. Mike DeWine postponed five executions scheduled for 2025. All five have been delayed until 2028. He cited the state’s inability to secure the drugs used in lethal injections due to pharmaceutical suppliers’ unwillingness.

— With files from the Associated Press

bhunter@postmedia.COM

@HunterTOSun