For death penalty opponents, the dramatic spike in executions last year was truly horrifying. After several years of no more than 25 executions, there were 47 executions in 2025, nearly double the years prior. This included the executions of people with intellectual disability, powerful claims of innocence, and whose trials were marked by profound unfairness and racism.
Even as executions surged, 2025 was also a year of continued progress in efforts to abolish the death penalty.
For years, the number of executions reflected decisions made decades ago: cases tried by prosecutors who were more likely to seek death and decided by juries who were more willing to hand down a death sentence. They are not a measure of where most Americans are today. When we look at modern indicators – public opinion, new prosecutions, and jury verdicts – the death penalty is losing its legitimacy.
Even as executions surged, 2025 was also a year of continued progress in efforts to abolish the death penalty.
New death sentences and public support for the death penalty are continuing a historic decline. Thirty years ago, juries returned new death sentences in over 300 cases. In 2025, they did so in only 23 cases. According to Death Penalty Information Center, more than half of the juries in 2025 recommended life verdicts. This is particularly remarkable considering how slanted capital juries are towards the death penalty. A process called death qualification ensures that jurors who are opposed to the death penalty and will not consider voting for life are excluded from serving on capital juries. As a result, juries areless diverse and more likely to convict and sentence someone to death.
That the death penalty has continued to decline despite most pro-death juries is a major feat and also confounding without looking into the larger context of pro-death sentencing. In his first term, President Donald Trump carried out an outrageous execution spree, executing 13 people before leaving office in 2020. President Joe Biden then issued large scale commutations to avoid another slate of executions. Voices from across the political spectrum celebrated President Biden’s historic act of clemency. However, last year, on day one of President Trump’s second term, he announced his pledge to do everything possible to restart and expand the death penalty.
When we look at modern indicators – public opinion, new prosecutions, and jury verdicts – the death penalty is losing its legitimacy.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis eagerly latched onto President’s Trump’s direction to embrace executions. After directing just one execution in 2023, Governor DeSantis ordered 19 in 2025. Advocates in California have publicly called on Governor Newsom to answer this threat by ensuring that this kind of death spree will not happen in his state and commuting California’s row, which is the largest in the country.
That's why at the ACLU, we're working to end capital punishment in courtrooms and statehouses across the country.
Trump and DeSantis’ focus on the death penalty shows how, despite public opinion, a few powerful individuals can promote pro-death penalty logic in our legal system and across the country. An administration set on cruelty over justice has only energized the resistance and made the problems with the death penalty impossible to ignore. After 50 years of reform, the death penalty’s innocence problem has proven intractable. The more than 200 U.S. death row inmates have been exonerated since 1973, a rate of about one exoneration for every eight executions. Key causes for false conviction include official misconduct, false accusations, faulty forensic "junk science," inadequate legal counsel, and racial bias.
That's why at the ACLU, we're working to end capital punishment in courtrooms and statehouses across the country. Each execution this year further exposes what the system really is and only strengthens the movement that will end it.