Three US states—Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma—are set to carry out lethal injections on Thursday, marking the first time since 2010 that three people are executed on the same day nationwide.
All three death row inmates, each convicted of murder, will be put to death, according to announcements from the states.
In Tennessee, Anthony Darrell Hines will be executed for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a 54-year-old hotel housekeeper in Kingston Springs. Hines was sentenced to death the following year, and after a resentencing hearing, was again given the death penalty in 1989.
Alabama will execute Jeremy Williams, 42, for the rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland in 2021. According to the indictment, Williams raped and strangled the child after offering $2,500 to the victim's mother for the heinous act. Williams pleaded guilty, appealed, and requested to be executed. Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey remarked: "Watching on video what he did to that poor child—a grown man doing that to a child—it's shocking, horrible, and disgusting. That's the level of evil."
In Oklahoma, Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, will be executed for the 2003 shooting death of his girlfriend Olimpia Fisher. He is the third person executed in Oklahoma this year and the 20th under Republican Governor Kevin Stitt.
If the executions in Tennessee and Alabama proceed as planned, six states will have carried out executions in 2026, amid a backdrop of 11 states conducting executions in 2025.
According to a Gallup poll, about 52% of Americans consider the death penalty morally acceptable, the lowest level since the 1970s. This reflects a steady decline in support for capital punishment in the US. The last time three executions occurred on the same day was in 2010, in Louisiana, Ohio, and Texas.
