Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is defending his modern-era record for executions this year, saying he is bringing justice to the families of victims.
But a new report reveals some troubling data: Five of the 15 convicted murderers executed this year in Florida were military veterans.
Two more inmates who served also are scheduled to die over the next two weeks. Bryan Jennings, a former Marine, is set to be executed Nov. 13, followed by Richard Randolph, an Army veteran, on Nov. 20.
Florida has overseen two-thirds of the executions and scheduled executions of veterans in 2025, according to the report by the Death Penalty Information Center.
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“Our research shows that the military service of capital defendants is often minimized or forgotten, even when the experience has been life altering,” says Robin Maher, executive director of the center, whose report – "Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds" – was released Nov. 10, a day before Veterans Day.
The report includes findings that a “battlefield-to-prison” pipeline exists for a substantial minority of those executed in the U.S.
Mental health care shortages for veterans
Concerns have mounted amid a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general’s report in August, which found severe staffing shortages across its hospitals. President Trump’s administration has dismissed the findings as “subjective.”
A ProPublica review last year of all reports published by the VA’s inspector general since 2020 showed that issues with veterans having trouble accessing mental health care were cited in more than half of the over 300 investigations and surveys.
Florida is second only to Texas as home to the largest veterans' population in the U.S., according to Florida's Department of Veterans' Affairs.
According to the non-partisan Council on Criminal Justice, the physical and psychological hazards of military service can be “significantly associated with a greater likelihood of criminal justice system involvement among veterans.”
Jeffrey Hutchinson, executed in May at Florida State Prison, was a Gulf War veteran convicted in the 1998 shooting deaths of his girlfriend and her three children in the Panhandle city of Crestview.
A letter from 129 veterans argued that Hutchinson's mind was a casualty of war. At his trial, psychologists supported the theory that Hutchinson, an Army Ranger from 1986 through 1994, may have suffered chemical exposure and concussive blasts that damaged his brain.
His trial judge, however, agreed with two prosecution psychologists who concluded there was no correlation between Hutchinson's diagnosis and the murders.
DeSantis on track to more than double Florida's execution record
Hutchinson is among a record number of Florida inmates executed this year. DeSantis is on track to more than double the state’s previous annual record of eight executions in 1984 and 2014, when Democrat Bob Graham and now-U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican, were the governors signing death warrants.
DeSantis, during a Nov. 3 appearance in Jacksonville, cited his decision to move ahead with more executions in his second-to-last year as governor. He said the death penalty is “an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders.”
There are 256 inmates on Florida’s Death Row. One inmate, Robert Peede, 81, died in July while awaiting his sentence to be carried out. He’d been on Death Row more than four decades.
“We have lengthy reviews and appeals that I think should be shorter,” said DeSantis, a Navy veteran. “I still have a responsibility to look at these cases and to be sure that the person's guilty. And if I honestly thought somebody wasn't, I would not pull the trigger on it.”
Florida since 1972 has sentenced at least 117 veterans to death — more than any other state and accounting for nearly 15% of the 807 veterans sentenced nationwide, the DPIC report found. At least 226 military veterans have been executed across the nation over that time — 14% of all people executed in the modern era, according to the report.
Military service part of death row appeals
Military service and trauma are typically presented as mitigating factors in court and clemency appeals. But their legal weight varies by case and is usually analyzed during the lengthy appeals process that accompanies death sentences.
Studies have shown that military experience is often part of a Death Row inmate’s life that's already been marked by severe childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect.
Florida’s most recent execution was Oct. 28, when Navy veteran Norman Grim, 65, died by lethal injection at Florida State Prison. Grim was convicted of sexual battery and first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of a Santa Rosa County woman who was his neighbor.
The 16th execution DeSantis has set for this year is Jennings, 66. He was convicted of raping and killing a 6-year-old girl in 1979 after entering through a window and abducting her from her Brevard County home.
Randolph, 63, is set to become Florida's 17th execution this year. He was convicted of the 1988 rape and fatal beating of his former manager at a Putnam County convenience store.
Death penalty opponents say convicted veterans deserve better treatment.
“These men are worthy of mercy because of their service and these executions are unnecessary,” said Abe Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action. “We can hold them accountable with severe punishment and be safe without killing them.
“We know this because that’s what we do in the vast majority of capital murder cases,” Bonowitz said.
Source: USA Today, John Kennedy, November 10, 2025
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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