Three States Execute Inmates as California Clears Death Row in Single Day

Three men died by lethal injection Thursday in Indiana, Florida and Alabama — the second time this year that three states carried out executions on the same day. Hours later, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would commute all 548 death sentences in his state to life without parole, a move that would empty the nation’s largest death row for the first time in over a century.

The convergence laid bare a country splitting along familiar lines. Florida, under outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis, has now executed 19 people this year, tying its own modern record set in 2025 and accounting for more than half of the 35 executions nationwide. Indiana and Alabama each added one. Before August, when Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama conducted a triple execution, the last time three states killed prisoners on the same day was January 2010.

Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, went first, pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. Central time at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. He had been convicted of setting a 2010 house fire near Evansville that killed his girlfriend’s two children, 8-year-old Alyssa and 5-year-old Caleb Lynch. Caleb was found hogtied with a washcloth in his mouth and railroad flares beneath his body. Weisheit’s attorneys cited his history of head injuries and mental health problems, and raised alarms about Indiana’s execution drugs — sourced from Pharmaneek, a pharmacy facing a disciplinary hearing next week over alleged compounding violations and unqualified staff. Gov. Mike Braun denied clemency. Attorney General Todd Rokita called the execution “long-awaited justice.”

Twelve hours later, Jesse Guardado, 64, died at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had confessed to stabbing 75-year-old Jackie Malone in her Walton County home in 2004, stealing her jewelry and $80 to feed a drug addiction. Malone had helped him find work and housing. In his final statement, Guardado apologized to her family and his own. The execution was Florida’s 19th this year. In July, the state carried out a double execution — the first by a single state in nearly a decade.

Alabama finished the day with Michael Taylor, 54, pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. local time. Taylor was 19 when he beat Ivan and Lucille Moore, ages 83 and 79, to death with a metal bar during a 1991 robbery in Gadsden. He was caught in their Cadillac in Birmingham. His attorneys had objected to lethal injection after Taylor previously selected nitrogen gas, but a judge ruled against preserving that choice after a state court declared the gas method unconstitutional. Gov. Kay Ivey refused to intervene, calling Taylor’s actions “reprehensible.” The victims’ family said they had waited 35 years.

As the three executions unfolded, Newsom signed an order commuting every death sentence in California. “State-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” he said. The governor imposed a moratorium in 2019 and dismantled the execution chamber at San Quentin. About 40% of the commutations can proceed directly; the rest require California Supreme Court approval. Victims’ rights groups condemned the move, saying families were not notified.

The national backdrop includes a botched execution in Tennessee. On Sept. 30, Christa Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital. Executioners struggled for an hour to place IV lines, using roughly 10 needles. Pike was hospitalized, unconscious and intubated, and regained consciousness days later. Gov. Bill Lee paused all executions in Tennessee for the remainder of the year — the second such pause in the state in 2026.