When Gov. Ron DeSantis was seeking the Republican presidential nomination last year, he ratcheted up the pace of executions, overseeing six – the most in Florida in almost a decade.
But by the time DeSantis’ presidential bid ended in January, his fervor for executions had abated, continuing into a layoff that is now prompting questions about just what powered last year’s surge.
DeSantis’ vigorous capital punishment push in 2023 was viewed by some critics as a dark competition with his leading rival, former President Donald Trump, who had conducted the most federal executions of civilian inmates since President Grover Cleveland in 1896.
The six executions conducted in Florida were among 24 nationwide last year. For DeSantis, they were also the first carried out since he signed two death warrants in 2019, his initial year as governor.
But the governor’s 10-month hiatus in signing death warrants has left some saying the lapse underscores just how arbitrary imposition of capital punishment is in a nation where 29 states have either abolished it or halted it by executive action.
“It’s always tied to a political reason,” said Herman Lindsey of Pompano Beach, who served three years on Death Row after being wrongfully convicted in the robbery and murder of a Fort Lauderdale pawn shop owner. He was freed in 2009.
“Death is not really a punishment, because we all will one day die,” Lindsey said. “But carrying out an execution can always be done for political gain.”
Executions can ramp up with onset of election season
The most executions in any year in Florida occurred in 2014, when now-U.S. Sen. Rick Scott oversaw eight. Scott was running for reelection as governor that year.
There are 276 inmates on Florida’s Death Row, some imprisoned since the 1970s. About 100 are considered potentially eligible for execution because they’ve exhausted their legal appeals.
But DeSantis hasn’t signed a death warrant since last August, when he set the October execution of Michael Duane Zack, 54, for the 1996 murders of two women in Northwest Florida. Before Zack, five longtime Florida inmates died by lethal injection in February, April, May, June and August.
Death penalty opponents say they hope DeSantis continues the current break but acknowledge it’s uncertain. The governor’s office did not respond to requests for reasons behind the halt, but last year pointed to delays caused by COVID-19 as contributing to the spike.
Citing both the legal and logistical challenges involved in carrying out executions, DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern said at the time, “The procedure is far more complicated – and involves many more people and resources – than is commonly understood.”
Meantime, support for the death penalty has been trending downward, with a Gallup survey last year showing a record-high 50% of Americans think it’s applied unfairly. Republican voters, though, still overwhelmingly support capital punishment and think it is applied fairly.
Still, DeSantis’ sudden silence on the issue is puzzling.
“The secrecy that surrounds the process of who will be selected for execution in Florida – and when – leaves people with very little choice but to speculate about the reasons,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit which does not take a formal position on capital punishment, but is critical of how it is administered.
Opponents say DeSantis more motivated last year
Some opponents, though, say the governor had more motivation last year.
“I think it was entirely about the presidential race and trying to compete with Trump,” said Abe Bonowitz, executive director and co-founder of Death Penalty Action, who has fought against capital punishment for more than 30 years in Florida and nationwide.
“As soon as DeSantis withdrew from the race, he withdrew from signing death warrants,” he added. “He could have continued unabated for two years, given Florida’s death row population.”
While president, Trump set a remarkable record of executing 13 federal inmates, all during his last six months in office.
Lately though, Project 2025, the collection of policy proposals compiled by conservative organizations allied with Trump, said stepped-up federal executions could occur if the former president wins again in November.
And a section of Project 2025 written by former Trump administration official Gene Hamilton says the next Trump administration should “do everything possible to obtain finality” for the 40 prisoners currently on federal death row.
Under President Biden, the U.S. Justice Department in 2021 put in place a moratorium on federal executions.
More executions could be part of second Trump presidency
But Hamilton, in Project 2025, argues that capital punishment should be expanded by a Trump administration for “particularly heinous crimes involving violence and sexual abuse of children – until Congress says otherwise through legislation.”
DeSantis during his failed White House bid also made law and order a central theme.
The governor in 2023 signed into law a measure making it easier for juries to apply the death penalty – allowing for only an 8-4 vote. The move followed the less-than-unanimous vote that resulted in Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz being sentenced to life in prison.
DeSantis also approved legislation that makes child rapists eligible for the death penalty. The move conflicts with a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found such punishment unconstitutional in cases where the victim did not die.
But any legal challenge to that law – matched this year by Tennessee – could eventually make its way to the high court, where the conservative majority may be ready to reconsider the 16-year-old ruling.
Tony Montalto, who lost his daughter Gina Rose in the Parkland massacre, testified before the Legislature last year in support of the death penalty jury change. Montalto says he has no insight into why the governor paused his signing of death warrants.
“It’s a long road to get to an execution, and rightly so, there are a lot of checks and balances,” he said.
“As a family who has suffered, I know that if we were in a position for someone to be executed, I would rather see it done sooner than later, once all legal hurdles are resolved.”
