Florida Death Row Prisoners Allege State Repeatedly Violated Its Own Execution Protocol Amid Unprecedented Execution Spree

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As Florida accelerates executions at a pace unseen in modern history, multiple death row prisoners with execution dates this month have filed claims with the Florida Supreme Court raising serious concerns about the State’s repeated failure to follow its own execution protocol. Courts have long held that under the Eighth Amendment, execution protocols must be followed precisely because deviations create a substantial risk of severe pain and unconstitutional punishment.

Highlighting the significance of this is the fact that Florida is the only state in the nation to include a paralytic medication in its three-drug execution protocol, meaning witnesses are unable to see any physical signs of distress during the dying process.

Ahead of their scheduled executions, Ronald Heath (Feb. 10) and Melvin Trotter (Feb. 24) have each presented evidence showing that Florida has repeatedly deviated from its lethal injection protocol – including using expired drugs, preparing incorrect and incomplete dosages, administering drugs not authorized by its own protocol, and failing to contemporaneously document what drugs were used, in what quantities, and when.

In his filings, Heath alleges that Florida has abandoned key procedural requirements meant to ensure proper drug administration, while Trotter’s claim details the State’s lack of transparency surrounding its execution process and calls for a stay of execution to allow for an independent review of the adherence to protocol.

Florida’s repeated departures from its own rules demonstrate not only recklessness, but a disturbing indifference to whether executions are carried out lawfully or humanely.

These allegations build on evidence first uncovered in litigation surrounding the December 18, 2025, execution of Frank Walls. Records produced in that case revealed that Florida used expired lethal injection drugs in at least four of the State’s 19 executions in 2025, and failed to comply with its own safeguards designed to prevent unnecessary pain and suffering.

“The State of Florida is asking the public to trust that executions are carried out carefully, lawfully, and humanely, as required by the U.S. Constitution, yet the evidence tells a very different story,” said Grace Hanna, Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “If ever is a time that screams for full transparency, it is when the government utilizes its highest power – the taking of a human life. This is not about the rightness or wrongness of lethal injection. It is about the public’s right to know what the State is doing in its name.”

“Execution protocols exist for a reason: to limit the risk of torture,” said Maria DeLiberato, Legal and Policy Director at Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “Florida’s repeated departures from its own rules demonstrate not only recklessness, but a disturbing indifference to whether executions are carried out lawfully or humanely. With this breakneck pace of killing, the risk of torture is only compounding.”

Florida currently has three men scheduled for execution in less than one month: Ronald Heath (Feb. 10), Melvin Trotter (Feb. 24), and Billy Kearse (March 3). If carried out, these executions would further extend what has already been an unprecedented execution spree for the Sunshine State, with Florida’s 19 executions last year making up 40% of all executions nationwide.

Advocates warn that the State’s rush to carry out executions – despite mounting evidence of protocol violations – undermines public confidence in the justice system and raises grave constitutional concerns.

FADP is a Florida-based, state-wide organization of individuals and groups working together to end the death penalty in Florida. Our network includes dozens of state and local groups and thousands of individual Floridians, including murder victims’ family members and other survivors of violent crime, law enforcement professionals, families of the incarcerated, and death row exonerees.

Source: FADP, Staff, February 2, 2026

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

— Oscar Wilde

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