2 more executions set in Florida and Alabama, hours after lethal injection in Indiana

Florida and Alabama plan to execute two men Thursday for killing older adults during home robberies, just hours after Indiana put a prisoner to death in the first of three lethal injections scheduled for the same day in the U.S. It would be Florida’s 19th execution this year under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, matching a record set by the state in 2025, and the second time this year that three people would be put to death on the same day. The death penalty has faced renewed scrutiny since the September failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, although courts have rejected efforts to halt other executions after she survived two doses of pentobarbital. In Indiana, Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m. at the state prison in Michigan City, said Noelle Russell, spokesperson at the Department of Correction. She said Weisheit’s final meal was barbecue ribs and he had no final words. He had acknowledged killing his girlfriend's two children in a house fire in the Evansville area in 2010 but had hoped that Gov. Mike Braun would grant clemency and change his sentence to life in prison. Braun declined. In Indiana, lawyers failed to persuade Braun, a Republican, to allow Weisheit to undergo brain scans in an effort to reinforce their argument that he has a history of head injuries and mental health problems that should foreclose execution. Weisheit's last objection centered on the state's planned use of lethal drugs purchased from a pharmacy that is facing a disciplinary hearing next week at the Indiana Pharmacy Board. The Indiana Supreme Court declined to intervene Wednesday night, though two of the five justices wanted a 10-day stay for more information about the drugs' expiration and storage. The execution provided “long-awaited justice for Alyssa Lynch and her brother Caleb, two innocent children whose lives were stolen in an act of unspeakable cruelty," Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said.