Three U.S. states set to execute inmates on same day

Three U.S. states are scheduled to carry out lethal injections on Thursday, August 13, 2026, marking the first time in 16 years that three executions will take place on the same day in the country. The rare scheduling coincidence involves inmates in Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma, all convicted of separate murders.

The last time three executions were held on a single day was January 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio, and Texas put inmates to death. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, such a convergence is highly unusual and largely a scheduling coincidence. The executions come amid a recent rise in capital punishment, driven by a small cluster of states. In 2025, 11 states executed a total of 47 people, the highest number since 2009. So far in 2026, 19 executions have occurred in four states.

In Tennessee, Anthony Darrell Hines, 66, is set to be executed for the 1985 stabbing murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a 54-year-old motel maid. Hines was sentenced to death in 1986, won a resentencing appeal, and was sentenced to death again in 1989. His lawyers argued his frail health, including two strokes and partial paralysis, could complicate the lethal injection process,...