Nardine Saad
(BBC) – It’s been 16 years since three people were executed on the same day in the US, but later on Thursday, three men convicted of murder in different US states will all face the death penalty.
The planned executions of inmates Anthony Darrell Hines, 66, Jeremy Williams, 41, and Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 71, in Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma, respectively, are indicative of a steep rise in executions across the US.
Last year, in 2025, there were more than four times as many people put to death as there were in 2021, even as juries, and the American public at large, became increasingly wary of its use.
So what’s driving the increase and are the US public in step with the trend?
The Trump factor
President Donald Trump has long been a major supporter of the death penalty, describing capital punishment as “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens”.
