Three States Plan Executions on the Same Day — A First Since 2010

On Thursday, August 13, 2026, three U.S. states — Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma — are each scheduled to put an inmate to death by lethal injection. A lethal injection is when drugs are used to cause death, and it is the most common method of execution in the United States. This is the first time since 2010 that three states have carried out executions on the same day.

The last time this happened was sixteen years ago, in Louisiana, Ohio, and Texas.

In Tennessee, Anthony Darrell Hines is scheduled for execution. He was convicted of the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a 54-year-old motel maid in Kingston Springs. Hines was first sentenced to death in 1986, won a new sentencing hearing, and was again sentenced to death in 1989. The Tennessee Department of Correction set the execution for 10:00 a.m. CDT on August 13, 2026. His case has lasted over four decades, making it one of the longest-running death-row cases in the country.

Alabama is set to execute 42-year-old Jeremy Williams for the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland. Williams pleaded guilty, declined to appeal, and asked that his death sentence be carried out. This means he gave up his right to have a higher court review his case for mistakes. Cases like his are sometimes called "voluntary" executions.

Oklahoma is set to execute 70-year-old Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez. He was convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend Olimpia Fisher in 2003. He would be the third person put to death in Oklahoma in 2026 and the 20th executed under Governor Kevin Stitt.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 46 execution dates had been scheduled by 8 states for 2026, with 15 death warrants listed as inactive. If the Tennessee and Alabama executions go ahead as planned, six states will have carried out executions in 2026. For comparison, eleven states did so in 2025.

The broader context here involves how the federal government handles the death penalty. In April 2026, the Trump administration announced plans to add firing squads, electrocution, and gas asphyxiation as alternative methods for federal executions. That proposal came as states continue to struggle with drug shortages and legal challenges related to lethal injection. All three executions on August 13, however, are set to use lethal injection.

There is also a global contrast worth noting. On August 11, 2026, Lebanon's parliament abolished the death penalty and replaced all existing death sentences with life imprisonment. This was reported as the first such abolition in its region. So while a country in the Middle East is moving away from capital punishment, multiple U.S. states are carrying it out on the same day.

The August 13 cluster shows both the persistence and the geographic concentration of the death penalty in the United States. Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma are all among the states that have kept active execution schedules, even though the number of new death sentences nationwide has gone down over the past two decades. The fact that 46 execution warrants have been scheduled across 8 states for 2026, with 15 currently inactive, suggests that the death penalty remains active in certain states even as the national trend moves toward fewer new sentences.

Each of the three cases also raises its own set of questions. Hines's case, with its original 1986 sentence and a second sentencing in 1989, shows how long death penalty legal cases can stretch — a process that can span generations of judges and lawyers. Williams's choice to give up his appeals and request execution raises ethical and legal questions about "volunteer" cases, which make up a significant share of completed executions in the modern era. Cuesta-Rodriguez, at 70, is part of a growing group of elderly inmates facing execution after spending decades on death row, which brings up questions about age, health, and whether executing someone that old serves the purpose of the punishment.

The simultaneous scheduling does not mean the three states coordinated with each other. Execution dates are set independently by state courts and correctional authorities. The fact that all three fall on the same day is a calendar coincidence, not a policy choice.