Pending execution in Florida marks new high for US in 2025

Florida carried out its 26th execution of the year on Tuesday, July 15, marking a milestone that already exceeds the total number of executions carried out in the U.S. in 2024. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant last month, authorizing the lethal injection of Michael Bernard Bell at Florida State Prison.

Executions increase in comparison to previous years 

Bell, who was sentenced to death for two murders that occurred in 1993, had asked the court to reopen his case and pause the execution, but justices denied both requests. His execution highlights Florida’s outsized role in increased capital punishment across the U.S. this year.

Bell became Florida’s eighth execution of the year, bringing the national total to 26 so far in 2025, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Florida leads the country in executions, followed by Texas and South Carolina with four each. Alabama has carried out three, and Oklahoma two.

Everyone executed so far had been on death row for at least 10 years, with some waiting more than 20 or 40 years.

In 2024, the U.S. executed 25 prisoners, up from 24 in 2023 and 18 in 2022. Looking back further, the highest number of executions since 1976 was 98 people who were put to death in 1999.

Trump’s executive order 

On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reinforcing the federal government’s commitment to carrying out the death penalty. The order directs the Justice Department to seek capital punishment in all eligible cases and urges state prosecutors to do the same, especially for crimes involving the killing of law enforcement officers or committed by individuals in the United States illegally.

The directive also instructs the attorney general to help states obtain the drugs needed for lethal injection and to review the cases of 37 federal death row inmates whose sentences were commuted in 2024. Trump’s order positions capital punishment as a necessary tool for justice and deterrence, calling for challenges to court rulings that have limited its use. 

Bell’s case and legal battle

Bell was convicted of killing Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith in a revenge shooting outside a Jacksonville lounge. Prosecutors say Bell fired more than a dozen shots with an AK-47, believing West was connected to his brother’s death earlier that year.

A jury found him guilty and unanimously recommended the death penalty. The court cited the calculated nature of the crime, his previous violent felony and the danger he posed to others nearby.

Over the past two decades, Bell has filed multiple appeals in both state and federal courts, arguing his trial was unfair and that his legal representation was inadequate. Some claims were dismissed as coming too late or having already been addressed. Others were denied after courts ruled there wasn’t enough new evidence to reopen the case.

In the weeks after Bell’s death warrant was signed, two key trial witnesses, Henry Edwards and Charles Jones, signed affidavits claiming they no longer stood by parts of their original testimony. Three other witnesses spoke to Bell’s defense investigators but declined to give sworn statements.

The court allowed these witnesses to consult attorneys before an evidentiary hearing. However, it ruled they had the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment, protecting them from possibly incriminating themselves. That decision followed concerns that any false testimony at the hearing could expose them to perjury charges.

Bell argued that blocking this testimony violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses, but the Florida Supreme Court disagreed.