Death Penalty Quarterly | October 2025
In the last few months, we’ve heard much about the death penalty on the national stage. As we reflect on the past quarter, this report highlights key trends, analysis and developments shaping the conversation across the country.
October offers a particularly important lens for this reflection. Respect Life Month invites us to honor the dignity of every human life, while the World Day Against the Death Penalty, observed just last week on October 10, reminds us of the urgent need for collective efforts to end capital punishment.
This moment is also marked by an unprecedented schedule of seven executions this month alone. This week, Lance Shockley was executed in Missouri, Samuel Smithers in Florida, and Charles Crawford in Mississippi. CMN’s Director of the Death Penalty Abolition Program, Emmjolee Mendoza Waters, had the privilege of meeting Lance on death row this past April and communicating with him last Friday.
Speaking on the experience, she said, “Being present outside the prison in Bonne Terre as the execution took place underscored the deeply personal reality of this work. It was a reminder for me that we need one another — that no one should ever have to face their time of need alone.”
Together, these stories and statistics reveal both the urgency of our current moment and the human realities behind the numbers. Continue reading to learn more.
By the Numbers
23 non-death penalty states
27 death penalty states, 4 of which have paused executions by executive action
38 executions carried out so far in 2025 across 11 states
Tennessee and Mississippi resumed executions after a long pause
1,645 executions in the U.S. since 1978
EXECUTIONS IN 2025
This year has seen an uptick in executions, largely due to Florida’s recent spree, which outpaces any other year previously in state history. The state now has the third-highest number of executions since the 1970s due to the 14 executions that have been carried out this year. Advocacy efforts continue across the country to respond to each and every execution.
EXECUTIONS OF VULNERABLE PEOPLE
The death penalty disproportionately affects society’s most vulnerable — those with mental illness, intellectual disabilities, or serious health conditions — with 96% of those executed in 2024 having at least one of these vulnerabilities, underscoring the urgent need to protect human dignity.
This quarter, several cases drew particular attention:
- Byron Black (TN) was executed on August 5 despite the fact that he lived with dementia, brain damage, kidney failure, and heart disease. He suffered a fatal pulmonary edema during his execution, a complication his attorneys warned could violate the Eighth Amendment. Witnesses reported that he cried out, “it’s hurting so bad” during his execution.
- David Pittman (FL) was executed on September 17 even though he had an intellectual disability that made reading difficult, required repeated explanations, and was reflected in consistently low IQ scores. Courts refused to hear his claim.
- Victor Jones (FL) was executed on September 30, following a history of abuse in his childhood at the state-run, notorious, and violent Okeechobee School for Boys. Just several months before they took his life, the state of Florida formally recognized Victor as a victim of abuse, making him eligible for the state’s compensation. This was given to him only 50 days before his execution date was scheduled.
THE CATHOLIC VOICE
SPEAKS & PRAYS
Pope Leo XIV
In a recent interview, Pope Leo spoke to the fullness of the Church’s teaching on the dignity of life and reiterated that death penalty is a life issue. You can find his statement here on our Facebook page.
Florida
While Florida leads the country in executions, the Catholic Church in the state is providing moral leadership: advocating and praying for an end to the death penalty.
- A Novena to End Florida’s Death Penalty: All of Florida’s bishops led a statewide Novena inviting Catholics to join in prayer for an end to the death penalty.
- Archbishop Wenski, Archdiocese of Miami: During a panel hosted by the Georgetown Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, Archbishop Wenski offered a powerful statement on the dignity of life, emphasizing that no person is a problem.
- “…To reduce a human person to a problem is to offend their dignity. That guy on death row is not a problem, in spite of the horror of his crimes. His dignity as a human being should be respected, even in his punishment.”
- In spite of this recent spree of executions, we lean back on this Pastoral Letter, released by Bishop Estévez in 2020 reaffirming the Church’s opposition to the death penalty and encouraging prayer, education, and advocacy for its abolition.
CASE PROFILES
Lance Shockley (MO)
Lance Shockley, a devoted father, who was a faith leader and peacekeeper in prison, was executed in Missouri on October 14, for a crime he says he did not commit. Listen to Lance share a powerful sermon called Never Give Up!
Ralph Menzies (UT)
Ralph Menzies, who has spent nearly 40 years on death row, suffers from severe dementia, is wheelchair-bound, and requires oxygen. He faced execution earlier this year, but in August 2025, the Utah Supreme Court issued a stay to review his mental competency.
Robert Roberson (TX)
A week before his scheduled execution for a crime that never happened, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Robert Roberson’s case and sent it back to district court for review under Ex Parte Roark (2024), which overturned convictions that relied on the now-debunked “Shaken Baby Syndrome” theory used in his 2003 trial. “Dateline: The Last Appeal” hosted by Lester Holt covers the whole case up until recent events.
LEGAL MATTERS
North Carolina
North Carolina recently passed a law, known as “Iryna’s Law” that brings back state executions. The law makes major changes to the state’s criminal laws — it sets tight deadlines for appeals in death penalty cases and allows alternative execution methods, including the electric chair and lethal gas, instead of just lethal injection.
Florida
The governor of Florida signed a law allowing the death penalty for child sex trafficking of victims under 12. Following this, Palm Beach prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for two individuals, charged with sexual battery of a child under 12. In the United States today, murder is the only crime for which people are on death row.
RESOURCES & EVENTS
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Get your copy today!
Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty is hosting an in-person and livestreamed panel, “Repeal to Heal”. CMN’s Executive Director, Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, will be one of the three panelists.
Register and find more information here.
IN MEMORIAM
Geoffrey Todd West, on Alabama’s death row for killing Margaret Parrish Berry in 1997, was executed via nitrogen gas on September 26. Will Berry, Margaret Berry’s son, urged the governor to commute his sentence to life despite prosecutors’ push for the death penalty.
“I forgive this guy, and I don’t want him to die. I don’t want the state to take revenge in my name or my family’s name for my mother. There shouldn’t be any more death. There should be healing and moving forward.”
— Will Berry
We pray for those who have been executed these past three months: Edward J. Zakrzewski (FL), Byron Lewis Black (TN), Kayle Barrington Bates (FL), Curtis Windom (FL), David J. Pittman (FL), Blaine Milam (TX), Geoffrey T. West (AL), Victor T. Jones (FL), Roy L. Ward (IN), Lance C. Shockley (MO), Samuel L. Smithers (FL), Charles Crawford (MS).
We also pray in a special way for the victims who lost their lives to acts of violence.
