Three men were put to death by lethal injection in three different states on Thursday, marking the first time since January 2010 that the United States has carried out executions in three states on the same day, according to NPR.

Anthony Darrell Hines, 66, was executed in Tennessee for the 1985 stabbing death of motel maid Catherine Jean Jenkins. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, was executed in Oklahoma for fatally shooting his girlfriend, Olimpia Fisher, in 2003; the state's Pardon and Parole Board had voted 3-1 against recommending clemency. The Tennessee and Oklahoma executions were carried out within roughly 30 minutes of each other. Alabama's execution, of 42-year-old Jeremy Williams, followed later in the day.

Williams was convicted in the 2021 rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland, whose mother he had paid to abuse the child. He pleaded guilty and declined to appeal his sentence. Prosecutors in the case did not mince words.

IT'S A LEVEL OF EVIL.

A rare same-day convergence

The last time three states executed inmates on the same day was January 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas each put an inmate to death, per reporting from the Washington Post. A similar triple execution was scheduled in 2018 but only one ultimately proceeded after reprieves and technical complications derailed the other two.

Eleven states carried out executions in 2025. Thursday's trio brought the number of states that have done so in 2026 up to six, continuing a gradual increase in capital punishment activity nationally even as the total number of death sentences handed down each year remains far below its 1990s peak.

Hines' attorneys had raised last-minute concerns about the state's lethal injection protocol, specifically around IV line insertion, but those appeals were rejected by the courts. None of the three men's final appeals succeeded in halting Thursday's executions.

What's next

Death penalty opponents are expected to point to Thursday's convergence as evidence that capital punishment is accelerating under looser execution protocols and more aggressive scheduling by state attorneys general, while supporters of the death penalty are likely to cite the cases — particularly Williams' — as justification for capital punishment in the most severe crimes. Additional executions remain scheduled in several states through the end of the year.