Indiana, Florida and Alabama plan executions on the same Thursday

Executions are scheduled in Indiana, Florida and Alabama on Thursday, potentially marking the second time this year that three people are put to death on the same day in the United States. Indiana prisoner Jeffrey Weisheit, who admitted killing two children in a house fire, was scheduled to receive the first of the three lethal injections.

The executions are approaching amid renewed scrutiny of capital punishment after Tennessee failed to execute Christa Pike last month. Pike survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital. Courts have since rejected attempts to stop other executions. Thursday's execution would be Indiana's first this year, Alabama's third and Florida's 19th, equaling the record Florida set in 2025.

Weisheit, 50, was convicted of starting a fire that killed his girlfriend's children, ages 8 and 5, at a home near Evansville in 2010. The killings were apparently connected to the deterioration of the couple's relationship. His lawyers asked Republican Gov. Mike Braun to permit brain scans that they hoped would support their arguments about Weisheit's history of head injuries and mental health problems. Braun refused and also denied a request to replace the death sentence with life imprisonment.

A further challenge from Weisheit concerned Indiana's purchase of execution drugs from a pharmacy scheduled to face a disciplinary hearing before the Indiana Pharmacy Board next week. The state's Department of Correction expressed confidence that it could conduct the execution humanely.

In Florida, Jesse Guardado, 64, faces execution for fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman in her Walton County home in 2004. Guardado confessed and promptly pleaded guilty. The woman had helped him obtain work and housing. He stole her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to finance his drug habit. A federal appeals court concluded in 2024 that the hearing during the death penalty phase of his case had been full and fair.

Florida accounts for more than half of the 32 executions carried out nationwide so far this year. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose term ends in January, has said he wants to deliver justice to families who have spent decades waiting for death sentences to be carried out.

Alabama plans to execute Michael Taylor, 54, for killing an older couple with a metal bar while robbing their Gadsden home 35 years ago. Taylor was 19 when police arrested him with the couple's Cadillac in Birmingham, an hour away. Opponents of capital punishment urged Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to commute his sentence, citing his youth and immaturity when the killings occurred. Ivey declined. Esther Brown of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty argued that Taylor had since become a mature and respected man.

Taylor's execution is scheduled to proceed by lethal injection after a judge found a nitrogen gas method unconstitutional. His lawyers challenged the late change because he had chosen nitrogen gas several years earlier, but a judge rejected that objection.