Florida is on pace to surpass its modern-era record for executions in a single year, set just last year in 2025.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — This article was first published by the News Service of Florida.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed his second death warrant in less than a week, putting Florida on track to exceed the modern-era record of executions carried out in one year, established in 2025.
On Monday, DeSantis signed a warrant ordering the execution of Jesse Guardado, 64, at Florida State Prison on Nov. 5. Guardado was sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of a Walton County woman.
With three additional executions scheduled over the next two weeks, Guardado would be the 20th person executed by Florida this year. The state carried out 19 executions in 2025, the highest annual total since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976 following a four-year hiatus.
James Robertson, 63, and William Lee Thompson, 74, are scheduled for execution Oct. 13. William Reaves, 77, is set to be executed Oct. 20. All three were convicted in connection with the 1986 killing of Indian River County Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Raczkowski.
Robertson is scheduled to die for the 2008 killing of his cellmate, Frank Hart, at Charlotte Correctional Institution. DeSantis signed Robertson’s warrant Thursday.
Thompson was convicted of murdering, kidnapping and sexually battering Sally Ivester 50 years ago in North Miami Beach.
As in previous death warrants, DeSantis wrote that executive clemency had been considered in Guardado’s case but that “it has been determined that executive clemency is not appropriate.”
Guardado was convicted of killing 75-year-old Jackie Malone and stealing money and other belongings while on a crack cocaine binge.
Court records show that Malone had helped Guardado find housing and employment after he left prison. On the night of Sept. 13, 2004, Guardado went to Malone’s home and told her he needed to use the telephone.
After Malone let him inside, Guardado struck her in the head with a tool called a breaker bar, stabbed her in the chest and slit her throat. He then took her purse, jewelry box, briefcase and cellphone.
Guardado pleaded guilty to murder and received a death sentence in October 2005. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the sentence in 2007.
Guardado later contended that his attorneys had been “ineffective” during the penalty phase of his case. He argued, in part, that they had failed to properly investigate and present mitigating evidence that might have prevented a death sentence. He also said they did not adequately seek to exclude three jurors from participating in the penalty phase.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments in 2024.
Florida’s planned execution comes as Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has paused executions in his state and ordered an independent investigation after Tennessee failed to execute Christa Gail Pike last Wednesday night. Tennessee also halted another execution in May after officials could not establish an intravenous line into an inmate.
Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty pointed to Thompson’s “grave illness” and warned last week that “The spectacle we have now seen twice in Tennessee could repeat in Florida. We have been warned, and there is still time to prevent it.”
According to Tennessee’s Department of Corrections, the state uses a single-drug lethal injection protocol based on the barbiturate pentobarbital.
Florida uses a three-drug lethal injection protocol involving etomidate, rocuronium bromide and potassium acetate. The drugs are administered in sequence to induce deep unconsciousness and sedation, cause paralysis after unconsciousness is established, and stop cardiac function.
Florida stopped including pentobarbital sodium in its three-drug cocktail in 2013 because of a shrinking supply.