Florida executes man as three states carry out death penalties in one day
Jesse Guardado was put to death in Florida while Indiana and Alabama also administered sentences, coinciding with California’s commutation of 548 death rows.
By Daniela Ortega ·
Florida carried out its 19th execution of the year on Thursday, tying a state record and matching a rare national event where three states administered the death penalty on the same day. The condemned man, Jesse Guardado, was executed in Florida while Indiana and Alabama also proceeded with their own sentences.
Guardado, 64, confessed to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman in her Walton County home in 2004. He pleaded guilty to killing the victim, who had helped him secure a job and housing, before stealing her jewelry box, $80, and other valuables to buy drugs. A federal appeals court ruled in 2024 that he received a full and fair hearing, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal without comment on Thursday afternoon.
Outgoing Governor Ron DeSantis has used the death penalty aggressively during his term. His administration signed the death warrants that led to the record 19 executions in 2025. Two more executions are scheduled for later this year, which would surpass the previous high set in 2025. DeSantis leaves office in January, having stated he wants to bring justice to families who waited decades for sentences to be carried out.
The executions in Florida occurred the same day California Governor Gavin Newsom announced he would commute all 548 death sentences in his state. Newsom stated that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values. This action stands in contrast to Florida, which has carried out more than half of the 33 executions performed in the United States so far this year.
In Indiana, Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. at the state prison in Michigan City. He had acknowledged killing his girlfriend’s two children in a house fire in the Evansville area in 2010. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said the execution provided long-awaited justice for the victims, Alyssa Lynch and her brother Caleb. Weisheit had hoped for clemency and a life sentence, arguing for brain scans to support claims of head injuries and mental health problems, but Governor Mike Braun declined.
In Alabama, Michael Taylor, 54, is scheduled to die by lethal injection later Thursday. He was convicted in 1991 for fatally beating two people, ages 83 and 79, with a metal bar during a robbery in their Gadsden home. Taylor was 19 at the time of the killings. His attorneys objected to the state’s switch from nitrogen gas to lethal injection, but a judge ruled against him. Esther Brown of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty noted that Taylor is now a mature, well-respected, God-fearing man, differing from the 19-year-old who made the mistake.
This is the second time since August that three states were set to carry out executions on a single day. Before this year, the last occurrence of this event was in 2010. The U.S. Supreme Court also declined to intervene in Weisheit’s case Wednesday night, despite two justices wanting a 10-day stay to review details about the lethal drugs’ expiration and storage.
