New Delhi, Aug. 13 -- WASHINGTON - On a Thursday that three state governments had scheduled for months, Jeremy Williams is set to die by lethal injection at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. In Tennessee, Anthony Darrell Hines waits at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution outside Nashville. In Oklahoma, Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, is expected to be executed at the state penitentiary in McAlester. The last time three states put condemned prisoners to death on the same calendar day was June 16, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio, and Texas carried out their respective sentences within hours of each other.

all three states have been active in carrying out capital sentences in a year when public support for the death penalty has de...