Executions in the US are soaring?
I'm torn here. One one hand I can not forgive the way Nordberg was visiously cut down in his prime. On the other, he was played by OJ.
See How the Death Penalty in the U.S. Is Changing as Executions Soar
States turn to older and newer methods amid lethal-injection drug shortages, while public opinion shows complex shifts
By Scott Calvert and Brian McGill, WSJ
Updated Oct. 18, 2026
Capital punishment is back in the national spotlight at a time when executions in the U.S. have been on the rise.
Last month, condemned prisoner Christa Pike survived a botched execution attempt by lethal injection in Tennessee. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has contemplated commuting the nation’s largest death row, with 563 inmates. And the Pentagon said it planned to livestream the firing-squad killing of Nidal Malik Hasan, an ex-officer who admitted to killing 13 people in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood Army base in Texas. President Trump said Thursday Hasan’s execution wouldn’t be livestreamed, after all.
These developments come amid a jump in executions after two decades of decline. The 47 executions nationwide last year were the most since 2009, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, or DPI, which takes no position on capital punishment but criticizes problems it identifies. Florida accounted for 19 of those 47 executions. So far in 2026, 31 people have been executed across the country, 17 of them in Florida.
Evolving methods
The way states carry out capital punishment has changed in recent years.
States have used lethal injection for most executions since 1977, when capital punishment resumed after a 1972 Supreme Court ruling that halted the practice. But lethal injection became more complicated as pharmaceutical companies stopped providing drugs for executions. States have turned to loosely or even unregulated sources, which experts say make lethal injections less reliable.
Along with seeking out other drug formulations, some states have turned to older methods such as firing squad and electrocution, or adopted new ones such as nitrogen gas hypoxia.
Where it is happening
Most executions since 1977 have occurred in the South. Six states—Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Virginia, Missouri and Alabama—account for 70% of the 1,685 executions in that span.
Virginia and 10 others states have abolished the death penalty in the past 20 years, and 32 states haven’t executed anyone in at least a decade.
History of death penalty
The modern age of executions in the U.S. started some 50 years ago. A de facto moratorium began in 1967, and in 1972 the Supreme Court declared all existing death-penalty laws unconstitutional. The high court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Here are executions before and after:
Shrinking death row
The U.S. death row population has fallen 44% since 2000. Beyond some states’ move away from capital punishment, factors include more-robust defense counsel, fewer death sentences from juries and the exoneration of more than 200 condemned inmates, DPI Executive Director Robin Maher said. Old age, she noted, is now the main cause of death for death-row inmates in some states.
Also, the process to execute inmates on death row has grown longer and costlier, as appeals helped push up the average age at execution to nearly 60 years old.
Public support
A majority of Americans say they favor the death penalty, though public support is on a decadeslong slide, according to Gallup. In 2025, 52% of those surveyed favored the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, the lowest share since 1972 and sharply below the high-water 80% in 1994, a time of elevated violent crime in the U.S.
The nonpartisan Pew Research Center said it has found greater support for capital punishment since it switched from telephone polling to online surveys in 2019. Its 2026 survey found 66% of Americans favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder. A majority of Americans don’t think capital punishment deters people from committing serious crimes, and most see at least some risk an innocent person could be put to death.
Opinions vary across American demographics:
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