Three death row inmates were executed by lethal injection across three U.S. states on Thursday.
In Florida, Jesse Guardado, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. local time. Guardado had pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing 75-year-old Jackie Malone in her home in 2004 to steal valuables for drugs. According to reports, Guardado began breathing heavily, sputtering, and twitching about a minute after the drugs began flowing.
Hours earlier, Indiana executed 50-year-old Jeffrey Weisheit. Weisheit had killed his partner's two young children, eight-year-old Alyssa Lynch and five-year-old Caleb Lynch, by setting fire to a house in Evansville, Indiana, in 2010. He was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. local time.
In Alabama, 54-year-old Michael Taylor received a lethal injection for his conviction in the 1991 killing of an elderly couple during a home robbery. Taylor, then 19, fatally beat Ivan Moore, 83, and his wife Lucille, 79, with a metal bar. He was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. local time.
The executions occurred as Florida's outgoing Governor Ron DeSantis has overseen a significant number of executions. Florida has carried out more than half of the 35 executions that have taken place in the U.S. this year. This marks the second time since August that three states have conducted executions on the same day, a rarity that last occurred in 2010.
In contrast to the executions, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced he would commute all 548 death sentences in his state, stating that "state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California's values."