The last person executed in the US was Richard Knight, who died by lethal injection in Florida on May 21, 2026. He was the fourteenth person put to death in the country so far this year. The answer shifts if you mean the federal government rather than a state: no one has been executed federally since January 2021.
Executions in 2026 So Far
Knight’s execution brought the 2026 total to fourteen as of late May. Florida accounts for the largest share of that figure, with Texas and Oklahoma following. The pace accelerated sharply the previous year: forty-six people were executed across roughly a dozen states in 2025, a notable jump from 2024.
Lethal injection remains the primary method everywhere that capital punishment is actively carried out. Roughly twenty-seven states still authorize the death penalty, but not all of them use it. Several have inmates on death row and have gone years or decades without an execution because of legal challenges, drug shortages, or gubernatorial pauses.
The Last Federal Execution
Dustin Higgs is still the last person executed by the federal government. He received a lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, and was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m. on January 16, 2021. His execution closed out a run of thirteen federal executions in roughly six months, following a seventeen-year stretch with none.
Higgs was convicted for his role in the 1996 murders of three women at the Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. Court records state that he drove the women to a secluded area and provided firearms to two companions, who shot the women. A jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland found him guilty of multiple counts of first-degree murder and kidnapping resulting in death, and unanimously recommended a death sentence.{1Justia. United States of America v. Dustin John Higgs} Federal death sentences are authorized under 18 U.S.C. ยง 3591, which applies when a defendant intentionally killed someone, participated in an act contemplating that a life would be taken, or engaged in violence creating a grave risk of death.{2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3591 – Sentence of Death}
After Higgs’s execution, the Biden administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions. President Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office in January 2025 directing a resumption of federal executions, and in April 2026 the Department of Justice formally rescinded the moratorium.{3United States Department of Justice. The Justice Department Takes Actions to Strengthen the Federal Death Penalty} No new federal execution has actually been carried out as of mid-2026. Male federal death-sentenced inmates are held in the Special Confinement Unit at Terre Haute; female inmates are housed at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Last Execution by Each Alternative Method
Nearly every execution in recent years has been by lethal injection, but a handful of alternative methods have been used, and some are returning as states struggle to obtain injection drugs.
Firing Squad
Brad Sigmon was the most recent person executed by firing squad, carried out by South Carolina on March 7, 2025. It was the first firing squad execution in the country since 2010 and only the fourth since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Before Sigmon, the last was Ronnie Lee Gardner, executed by Utah on June 18, 2010. Gardner had chosen the firing squad over lethal injection because he was sentenced before Utah eliminated that option in 2004. Five anonymous marksmen bearing rifles fired from a prison room. All four firing squad executions since 1976 have taken place in Utah or South Carolina.
Nitrogen Hypoxia
Kenneth Smith was the first person ever executed by nitrogen hypoxia, in Alabama on January 25, 2024. The procedure pumped pure nitrogen through a face mask, displacing oxygen until death. Witnesses reported that Smith appeared conscious for several minutes, shaking and writhing before he was pronounced dead. The method has since been used eight times total: seven in Alabama and once in Louisiana. Five states now authorize it: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.{4SCOTUSblog. Will the Supreme Court End Nitrogen Gas Executions} In some of those states it can only be used when lethal injection drugs are unavailable or when the inmate affirmatively chooses it. Its legality is now the subject of active Supreme Court litigation.
Hanging
Billy Bailey was the last person executed by hanging in the United States, in Delaware on January 25, 1996. He had been sentenced to death before Delaware switched to lethal injection as its sole method in 1986, and the law gave inmates sentenced under the old rules the right to choose between hanging and injection. Bailey chose the gallows. Delaware has since dismantled them, and no state has carried out a hanging since.
Electrocution
The electric chair was once the dominant execution method in the United States but has been largely replaced by lethal injection. Several states still authorize electrocution as an alternative, and a handful of inmates have chosen it in recent years, primarily in Tennessee and Virginia. No state uses the electric chair as its sole method.
The Last Public Execution
Rainey Bethea, hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, on August 14, 1936, was the last person publicly executed in the United States. Newspapers at the time estimated that as many as 20,000 people showed up to watch. He had been convicted of the rape of a seventy-year-old woman named Elza Edwards, who was found strangled in her home earlier that year. Kentucky law at the time required that rape sentences be carried out by public hanging.
The spectacle drew national media coverage, almost all of it negative. Reporters described a carnival atmosphere, with vendors selling food and spectators jostling for a view. The criticism that followed pushed state legislatures to require that executions take place behind prison walls. Kentucky itself abolished public hangings in 1938.