\n EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Editor\u2019s Note: This story contains graphic and disturbing descriptions of sexual violence\n<\/p>\n
AP\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma plan to execute inmates Thursday in what would be the first time in nearly 16 years that three people are put to death on the same day in the United States.\n <\/p>\n
\n The executions come as a small number of states, including the three with scheduled lethal injections Thursday, drive execution numbers in the United States.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou look at the country as a whole, you\u2019ve just got this little pocket of five or six states that are using the death penalty, executing people, and a small number of states that are still imposing new death sentences,\u201d said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Maher said it is highly unusual to have three executions on one day, although it is largely a scheduling coincidence.\n <\/p>\n
\n Eleven states executed a total of 47 people in 2025, the highest number since 2009. Florida accounted for most of the surge with 19 executions. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas each carried out five. Tennessee carried out three. Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arizona and Indiana each carried out two. Louisiana and Missouri each carried out one execution.\n <\/p>\n
\n The 19 executions so far in 2026 have occurred in four states. Florida, which again leads the country, executed two inmates on the same day in July.\n <\/p>\n
\n The last time three executions were held on the same day was Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death. Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was granted a reprieve and prison officials in Alabama had problems with the IV line.\n <\/p>\n
\n Tennessee plans to execute Anthony Darrell Hines three months after the attempted lethal injection of another inmate was called off because of problems inserting an IV. The aborted execution put a spotlight on issues states have sometimes had in establishing IV lines during lethal injections.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cAll eyes really are on Tennessee at this moment because of the problem that happened,\u201d Maher said.\n <\/p>\n
\n During the attempted execution of Tony Carruthers in May, the IV team established a primary line right away but then worked for more than an hour trying to insert a required backup line. The execution was ultimately called off and Carruthers was given a one-year reprieve.\n <\/p>\n
\n Hines, 66, has seized on the problems with the previous execution, saying his health issues \u2014 including two strokes that left him partially paralyzed \u2014 increase the risk of difficulties at his execution. He has unsuccessfully asked the governor and courts to intervene, claiming the doctor who oversaw that execution was unqualified and is likely to botch his execution, as well.\n <\/p>\n
\n Gov. Bill Lee has declined to take any action on Hines\u2019 requests, and last week the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled against a stay of his execution. The state has declined to say whether the same doctor will preside over the upcoming execution, but the court noted that Hines had not proved that doctor was unqualified.\n <\/p>\n
\n Hines was convicted of stabbing Catherine Jean Jenkins to death in 1985 while the 54-year-old was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs. He was sentenced to death in 1986, won an appeal for a new sentencing hearing, and was again sentenced to death in 1989.\n <\/p>\n
\n Alabama is scheduled to execute Jeremy Williams, 42, by lethal injection for the 2021 rape and murder of a 5-year-old Georgia girl.\n <\/p>\n
\n Williams, who pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland, has asked for his death sentence to be carried out.\n <\/p>\n
\n Prosecutors said Williams raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform oral sex on him. Williams filmed his attack on the girl and kept her body to continue to abuse, prosecutors said.\n <\/p>\n
\n In 2022, Williams also was charged with the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis man left a trail of destruction of children,\u201d Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey said.\n <\/p>\n
\n About 10% of executed inmates are so-called volunteers who drop appeals, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, but most of those have been on death row longer. The time between Williams\u2019 2024 conviction and his scheduled lethal injection is unusually brief, Maher said.\n <\/p>\n
\n It will be Alabama\u2019s first execution of the year if it goes forward. A nitrogen gas execution was halted in June after a federal judge ruled the method unconstitutional.\n <\/p>\n
\n Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend.\n <\/p>\n
\n If the lethal injection goes forward, he will be the third person executed in Oklahoma this year.\n <\/p>\n
\n Prosecutors said Olimpia Fisher, 43, had been making plans to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her in one eye and then waited about eight minutes as she screamed for help before firing the fatal shot into her other eye.\n <\/p>\n
\n Oklahoma\u2019s Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-1 last month against recommending clemency for Cuesta-Rodriguez. Cuesta-Rodriguez\u2019s attorneys had asked the board to recommend he serve life in prison without parole, saying he had a difficult childhood and suffered from brain damage, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression with psychotic episodes.\n <\/p>\n
\n But Cuesta-Rodriguez told the board that he did not want clemency. He said he wanted Fisher\u2019s two daughters to know that he regretted what happened.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI can\u2019t have been in my right mind to have done something so horrific,\u201d he said through a Spanish-language translator. \u201cI have not been able to find any sense in all this.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Editor\u2019s Note: This story contains graphic and disturbing descriptions of sexual violence AP\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Tennessee, Alabama and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-811108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}