Florida reaches 19 executions as Alabama and Indiana carry out death sentences

Florida, Alabama and Indiana carried out executions on the same day, highlighting the continuing divide in the United States over capital punishment. The executions coincided with California Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to commute all 548 of his state’s death sentences before leaving office, a move experts say would be the largest mass clemency in American history.

Florida executed Jesse Guardado, 64, for the 2004 killing of Jackie Malone, a woman who had helped him find work and housing; the execution brought the state’s total this year to a record-tying 19, with two more planned. Alabama executed Michael Taylor, 54, over the killing of an older man and woman during a home robbery, while Indiana put to death a man convicted of killing two children by setting a house fire in 2010. It was the second time since August that three states had carried out executions on one day; before then, the previous instance was in 2010.