US executions surged in 2025 to highest level in 16 years

Forty-seven men killed by states operating death penalty - almost double last year's number

US executions have surged in 2025 to the highest level in 16 years, as Donald Trump's campaign to reinvigorate judicial killings, combined with the US supreme court's increasing refusal to engage in last-minute pleas for reprieve, have taken a heavy toll.

A total of 47 men - they were all male - have been killed by states operating the death penalty in the course of the year. That was almost double the number in 2024, amounting to the greatest frenzy of capital punishment bloodletting in America since 2009.