18th Florida Death Row Prisoner Set for Execution in 2025 Waives Appeals, Fifth Volunteer of 2025

Mark Geralds has waived all pend­ing and future legal pro­ceed­ings in his case and is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by Florida offi­cials on December 9, 2025. Mr. Geralds elect­ed to for­go his appeals just days after Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death war­rant, join­ing a doc­u­ment­ed group of death row pris­on­ers who have also decid­ed not to try and pre­vent their executions.

Mr. Geralds ​“indi­cat­ed that his wish was to for­go all war­rant pro­ceed­ings and allow the exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed,” wrote Bay County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Register in his order grant­i­ng Mr. Geralds’ request to waive appeals. Judge Register found Mr. Geralds com­pe­tent to make this deci­sion and con­firmed it was made ​“freely and vol­un­tar­i­ly.” If car­ried out, Mr. Geralds’ exe­cu­tion would mark Florida’s 18th exe­cu­tion of 2025, a total far exceed­ing the state’s pri­or record of eight exe­cu­tions in one year. Mr. Geralds would also become the 171st exe­cu­tion vol­un­teer since exe­cu­tions resumed in 1977, and the fifth vol­un­teer of 2025.

Since 1977, exe­cu­tion vol­un­teers have rep­re­sent­ed approx­i­mate­ly 10% of all mod­ern exe­cu­tions. There were four oth­er vol­un­teers in 2025: Aaron Gunches (AZ), James Osgood (AL), Richard Djerf (AZ), and most recent­ly, Norman Grim (FL). Mr. Grim’s death war­rant was signed despite him not hav­ing assigned coun­sel at the time, his pre­vi­ous attor­ney hav­ing failed to prop­er­ly with­draw from his case after retir­ing. His new coun­sel was not appoint­ed until four days after Gov. DeSantis signed the exe­cu­tion war­rant, and Mr. Grim did not want them to file final appeals. Mr. Grim was a U.S. Navy vet­er­an whose child­hood was shaped by vio­lence and abuse, and whose young adult­hood was marked by men­tal ill­ness and sub­stance abuse. Mr. Grim was the fifth vet­er­an Florida exe­cut­ed in 2025, and since his exe­cu­tion, two oth­ers have been exe­cut­ed: Bryan Jennings and Richard ​“Malik” Randolph. 2025 is among the dead­liest year for vet­er­ans on death row, with nine vet­er­ans exe­cut­ed and one more sched­uled for execution.

Research shows a strong cor­re­la­tion between vol­un­teer­ing for exe­cu­tion and men­tal health issues. A 2004 study by Cornell Law School Professor John Blume found that 88% of exe­cu­tion vol­un­teers between 1977 and 2003 strug­gled with men­tal ill­ness and/​or sub­stance abuse. In October 2024, DPI ana­lyzed vol­un­teers exe­cut­ed in the twen­ty years since Professor Blume’s study and found that among the first 165 exe­cu­tion vol­un­teers, 87% had men­tal ill­ness, sub­stance abuse, or both. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who adamant­ly opposed the death penal­ty, once called the prac­tice of allow­ing men­tal­ly ill pris­on­ers to waive their appeals and be exe­cut­ed ​“noth­ing less than state-administered suicide.”

Mr. Geralds was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1989 armed rob­bery, bur­glary, and mur­der of Tressa Pettibone in Panama City, Florida. He was ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to death in 1990, but the Florida Supreme Court vacat­ed his death sen­tence while main­tain­ing the con­vic­tion. He was sen­tenced to death again in 1993 and his sen­tence became final in 1996. In post-con­vic­tion appeals, Mr. Geralds alleged there was pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct before and dur­ing his tri­al, that he had inef­fec­tive assis­tance coun­sel, and he raised con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns about lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. All of these claims were denied, in addi­tion to fed­er­al habeas relief.

In 2025, 44 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed across 11 states. Florida is respon­si­ble for 17 of these exe­cu­tions, or 38.6%. Three more exe­cu­tions are sched­uled in Florida and Tennessee in December 2025: Harold Nichols (12/​11), Mark Geralds (12/​12), and Frank Walls (12/​18).

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Hayley Bedard, November 24, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde