In Solidarity Against Cruel & Unusual: Anti-Death Penalty Protests Across TN, GA & FL Kicked Off This Weekend: 2025 Will Be Highest # Of Annual Executions Since 2010

December 10, 2025 Death Penalty Action 0 Civil Rights, Equality, Health, History, Morality and Ethics, News, Staten Islander Exclusive

Two Weeks of Anti-Death Penalty Protests Across TN, GA & FL Kicks Off Today

First events in TN with March, Bell Tolling

( SUNDAY: MARCH4MERCY from Riverbend Correctional Institution to Tennessee Capitol )

(Monday: 9:30am: Press conference followed by petition delivery to Governor Lee – meet at West Entrance to Capitol)

Editor’s note: In many Death Penalty cases, the quest for actual justice is not important to the court system at all. In addition, it should be noted that in lethal injection forms of the death penalty, EVERY pharmaceutical manufacturer has stated publicly that their medications cannot be used for lethal injections and that NO doctor who values their license can administer them. This means that in states with such injections, an unqualified person is making the injection of the substance, likely causing the procedure to be more painful and cause more suffering than even the process of death itself. There are also cases where a prisoner wants to choose a quicker and less cruel method of death (not stating that they don’t want to die, they just want to choose their method), this has been rejected. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld that the death penalty is somehow NOT cruel and unusual, and any method itself that is challenged must meet a very high standard of suffering and offer an alternative that causes less suffering, but this extremely high bar is usually unattainable.

Washington, DC — With four executions over the next two weeks, executing states have cumulatively carried out the most executions since 2011, and in the next two weeks will take us back to 2010, when the US executed 46 prisoners. If all four executions scheduled in Florida (2), Tennessee and Georgia proceed, the total in 2025 will be 48 executions, nearly twice as many executions as the 25 which were carried out in 2024. Death Penalty Action, the national Anti-death penalty group that lifts up grassroots opposition to every execution in the United States, is traveling to be present at prisons and state capitols in all three states.

“Every one of the 44 executions carried out so far this year demonstrate various flaws with capital punishment,” said Abraham Bonowitz, Executive Director of Death Penalty Action. “I used to support the death penalty. But the more you know about it, the less you like it. That’s why we’re shining a spotlight on every execution. Our goal is to bring people closer to the dirty underwear of America’s most failed public policy.”

The group is partnering with local allies in Tennessee and Florida this week to support marches, press conferences, petition deliveries, live and virtual execution vigils and other events, and is planning similar activities around executions December 17th in Georgia and December 18th in Florida. The known schedule is below.

Traveling this week in Tennessee and Florida and available for interviews:

Abraham Bonowitz: Co-Founder & Executive Director of Death Penalty Action
Scott Langley: Co-Founder of Death Penalty Action whose Death Penalty Photography Project has been in progress since 1999
SueZann Bosler: Co-Founder of Journey of Hope …From Violence to Healing, the only national anti-death penalty organization led by murder victim family members

Executions Schedule with links to core issues in each case

#45 – 12/9 in Florida – Mark Geralds (Innocence/Unconstitutional Process)
#46 – 12/11 in Tennessee – Harold Nichols (Inappropriate Sentence)
#47 – 12/17 in Georgia – Stacy Humphreys (Juror Misconduct)
#48 – 12/18 in Florida – Frank Walls (Intellectual Disability/Unconstitutional Process)

Schedule for December 8-11

Sunday: March4Mercy from the Death Row Prison to the Tennessee Capitol (separate press release for Tennessee activities is here.)
Monday: Press Conference 9:30am CTat TN Capitol & Petition Delivery in Nashville, then drive to Tallahassee
Tuesday: Petition Delivery at Florida State Capitol (11am ET), then drive to Death Row Prison at Starke for Execution Vigil (5pm ET) with Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
Wednesday: Drive to St. Petersburg for International Human Rights Day Event (6:30pm ET) in conjunction with Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Journey of Hope …From Violence to Healing
Thursday: Execution Vigil (9am CT) at Riverbend Correctional Facility in Nashville, then rest before driving driving back to Columbus, Ohio

The For Whom The Bells Toll Project

Some events will include the tolling of The Delaware Bell, a 200lb bronze bell created for Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty, which tolled it outside most of the 18 executions carried out by Delaware before its law was ruled unconstitutional by the Delaware Supreme Court in 2016. In 2024, Delaware lawmakers erased all death penalty-enabling language in the state code, and earlier this year passed the first of two required votes to amend the state constitution to explicitly prohibit capital punishment.

“I got a call from our friends in Delaware saying they could put the bell in a museum, or I could come and get it,” said Bonowitz. “It’s been quite a learning experience both spiritually and pragmatically, just in terms of moving this bell around the country. Every day people have tolled this bell at statehouses and execution protests in eight states over the past 15 months. It’s a powerful experience.”

The idea of tolling bells on the day of an execution was developed when Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Virginia heard about Jaime Cardinal Sin of the Philippines encouraging Catholic churches in the Philippines to toll their bells in response to the execution of a Filipino citizen. Starting on November 9, 1999, Bishop Sullivan encouraged all churches in his diocese to toll their bells on the evening of every execution until the death penalty was abolished in the United States. Virginia abolished its death penalty in 2021.

Death Penalty Action is resurrecting the For Whom the Bells Toll campaign that was started by Sister Dorothy “Dot” Briggs in the 1990’s to support Bishop Sullivan’s call to action.

Addition background and information is at ForWhomTheBellsToll.org