The number of US executions had dwindled. Last year, that all changed

Death row inmate Christa Pike was still fighting for life in a Tennessee hospital when the US federal government announced its plans.

Just days after state officials botched the 50-year-old's execution, federal officials were ready to go ahead with another.

The US military, the Pentagon said, would conduct its first execution by firing squad since World War II.

By the time Pike, 50, had begun talking again, the Pentagon had made another announcement.

The firing squad execution would be live streamed.

At a time when approval for the death penalty has declined across the US, these high profile cases raise an unprecedented discussion for Americans, according to Vincent Hurley, a criminologist at Macquarie University.

"Even if they don't vote, [Americans] can't escape the surreal notion that someone has been executed by the state twice, and it's failed," he said.

"We're living in a world of chaos, and nothing should surprise us.

"But this is so out of the box, it's just surreal."

Support for death penalty falls as executions rise 

The number of Americans who support the death penalty fell to a five-decade low of 52 per cent in late 2025, according to Washington-based analytics company Gallup.

Support for the practice has been declining since 1994, when it reached a peak of 80 per cent.

The same Gallup poll found 44 per cent of Americans now oppose the death penalty, the highest level of opposition since 1966.

But a separate poll, by the Pew Research Center, found that when it came to people convicted of murder, nearly two-thirds of respondents supported the death penalty. 

It found support for the death penalty had jumped six percentage points compared to April 2021.

Executions rising as Trump administration declares them 'essential' 

Over the last two decades, the number of executions had steadily decreased from a 1999 peak of 98 in a single year.

That changed last year.

In 2025, the number of executions rose to 47 in one year, up from a total of 25 in 2024.

That was largely driven by a dramatic increase in executions in Florida, which accounted for 40 per cent of the year's total.

Louisiana joined Alabama in using nitrogen gas to execute prisoners.

South Carolina performed the first firing squad execution nationally in 15 years, with a subsequent autopsy indicating the shooters missed their target, his heart.

At the same time, the US Supreme Court denied every request for a stay of execution throughout the year.

In the final weeks in the role, former president Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row.

In January 2025, President Donald Trump issued an order calling capital punishment an "essential tool".

"Our founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order in response to such evil," the order said.

"Yet for too long, politicians and judges who oppose capital punishment have defied and subverted the laws of our country."

Was Christa Pike's botched execution 'retribution' or 'punishment'? 

The polling by Gallup and Pew was conducted before Christa Pike received two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital and kept breathing.

Hers was the second failed execution attempt in Tennessee in the last six months, and the first recorded case of someone surviving the drug.

As her legal team filed an emergency motion to preserve evidence in and around the execution chamber, Tennessee officials declined to say whether they would try to execute her again.

The "spectacle" of the failed execution "collapsed" what many Americans thought of as a humane method, according to Dr Hurley.

"When you think about the terminology they use around this, things like procedure, protocol, administering, IV lines," he said.

"It sanitises the whole thing.

"The language they use does dilute the fact that they're actually murdering someone."

Many people may lean into a sense of "moral disengagement", he added.

"There's a theory … where people want to avoid feeling guilty about something that's happening," he said.

"So they dehumanise Christa in this case [and] what was really interesting was when she went to trial, her sexual abuse was never disclosed.

"Whether that would have changed the outcome, no one really knows, but no one got a full picture of her life leading up to the murder."

Pike was sentenced to die in 1996, following the murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer when she was 18 years old, the same year support for capital punishment hit its peak.

Her legal team has argued severe neglect and sexual abuse throughout her life left Pike with brain damage and diminished control over her own actions.

"I think when [people] see that case, the issue of fairness comes up," Dr Hurley said.

"People now realise that behind her … there is a life of disadvantage.

"When people talk about [the death penalty], they ask, 'is it retribution for what she's done, or is it punishment?'"

A 'deeply disturbing' shift in US government, warn humanitarian groups

Globally in 2025, executions soared to the highest figure recorded by human rights organisation Amnesty International since 1981.

A total of 2,707 people were executed across 17 countries.

The 78 per cent rise was attributed in Amnesty's annual report to "a handful of governments determined to rule by fear".

The main driver was Iran, which executed 2,159 people, more than double its 2024 number.

But the United States also appeared on the list of those leading the global increase, something the report noted as "alarming".

Both Christa Pike's botched execution and the plans for a firing squad execution were "deeply, deeply disturbing", Kyinzom Dhongdue, Amnesty International Australia's spokesperson, told the ABC.

Nidal Malik Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring dozens more at a military base in 2009.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said his execution by military firing squad would be live streamed on December 3.

Asked if Hasan had made any final requests, Mr Hegseth told a conservative TV outlet: "Don't care".

"Unfortunately it really shows the current US administration's complete disregard for human life, human dignity, really," Ms Dhongdue said.

"Amnesty's position is that we oppose the death penalty in all cases, no exception.

"We consider this as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and a gross violation of the right to life."

The public execution, she added, reflected an "authoritarian" shift in the US government.

"If we look at other authoritarian regimes, these are often the regimes who have turned executions into public events," she said.

"Amnesty reported 17 public executions in 2025, and those happened in very authoritarian environments like Afghanistan and Iran.

"These are very disturbing and they transform this punishment into a spectacle."

"It's almost always [used] to make the state's power visible and to create fear in the population."