Might five US states complete six executions in March 2025?

This new USA Today piece highlights that a trio of states that have not conducted many executions recently are scheduled to carry out death sentences next month:

Louisiana’s execution of Christopher Sepulvado on March 17 would mark the end of a 15-year break in executions in the state, which plans to use nitrogen gas.  Arizona’s execution of Aaron Gunches on March 19 would be the first in the state since 2022, when the state struggled to carry out three executions.  Meanwhile South Carolina is set to execute its fourth inmate since September, when the state reinstated the practice after a 13-year pause.

In addition, accourding to the Death Penalty Information Center’s Upcoming Executions page, Oklahoma and Texas have an execution scheduled in March, and Louisiana actually two executions scheduled on back-to-back days in mid-March.

If all six of these scheduled executions go forward, March 2025 will have more executions completed in the US than in over a decade.  The last month with six executions, based on my scan of the DPIC’s execution database, was back in January 2015.  And if all ssx scheduled execution are completed, the US will have completed as many executions in the first three months of 2025 as it did in all of 2021 (which set a modern historic low for US executions in one year). 

After fairly steady declines in the number of yearly executions in the 2000s and and 2010s, the 2020s have so far seen a notable (though still modest) uptick in yearly executions since the modern low in 2021.  Time (and litigation) will tell if that trend will continue in 2025 and beyond.