United States — November 5, 2026
Three states — Indiana, Florida and Alabama — carried out executions on Thursday, November 5, marking an unusual day for capital punishment in the United States.
The three executions took place on the same day, involving prisoners convicted in separate murder cases. All three states used lethal injection, according to reports.
Indiana executes Jeffrey Weisheit
Indiana executed 50-year-old Jeffrey Weisheit at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. He was convicted of setting fire to his girlfriend’s home in the Evansville area in 2010, killing her two children, Alyssa and Caleb Lynch, who were eight and five years old.
Weisheit was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. local time. His lawyers had sought clemency and raised concerns about his history of head injuries and mental health, but Governor Mike Braun declined to commute his sentence.
The children’s father, Steven Lynch, had also publicly asked the governor to spare Weisheit’s life, saying he did not believe execution was what his children would have wanted.
Florida executes Jesse Guardado
Florida executed 64-year-old Jesse Guardado by lethal injection. He had been convicted of killing a 75-year-old woman in Walton County in 2004.
Guardado pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing the woman inside her home and stealing valuables, including money and jewelry. The victim had previously helped him find employment and housing.
The execution was Florida’s 19th of 2026, matching the state’s record from the previous year.
Alabama executes Michael Taylor
Alabama executed 54-year-old Michael Taylor for the 1991 killings of an elderly couple in Gadsden.
Taylor was 19 years old when he beat the victims, aged 83 and 79, to death with a metal bar during a robbery at their home.
His attorneys and death penalty opponents asked Governor Kay Ivey to commute his sentence, pointing to his age at the time of the crime and concerns about his legal representation.
Taylor had selected nitrogen gas as his execution method, but a judge ruled that method unconstitutional in his case. The state proceeded with lethal injection after the court rejected his legal challenge.
Renewed debate over the death penalty
The executions came amid renewed national debate about capital punishment, including questions about execution methods, legal representation, clemency and the treatment of prisoners.
The same day, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to commute the death sentences of all 548 people on the state’s death row to life imprisonment without parole. California’s action highlighted the contrasting approaches taken by different states toward the death penalty.
The November 5 executions were unusual: the Death Penalty Information Center said three executions on one day had not occurred since 2010 before this year’s repeated instances.
Source: CNN reporting, with additional details from The Associated Press, The Guardian and the Death Penalty Information Center.
Original CNN article: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/11/05/us/executions-indiana-florida-alabama
United States — November 5, 2026
