DeSantis on Monday signed a warrant for Jesse Guardado, 64, to be executed Nov. 5 at Florida State Prison for the murder of a Walton County woman in 2004.
With three other executions planned over the next two weeks, Guardado would become the 20th execution conducted by the state this year. The 19 executions carried out by the state in 2025 were the most for a single year in Florida since capital punishment was revived after a four-year hiatus in 1976 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
James Robertson, 63, and William Lee Thompson, 74, are scheduled to be executed on Oct. 13, with William Reaves, 77, to be executed Oct. 20 for the 1986 killing of Indian River County Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Raczkowski.
Robertson is to be put to death for the 2008 murder of his cellmate, Frank Hart, at Charlotte Correctional Institution. Robertson’s warrant was signed Thursday.
Thompson has been convicted of the murder, kidnapping, and sexual battery of Sally Ivester 50 years ago in North Miami Beach.
As he has done in prior warrants, DeSantis stated in the warrant for Guardado that executive clemency was considered, but “it has been determined that executive clemency is not appropriate.”
Guardado was convicted of killing Jackie Malone, 75, before stealing money and other items while he was on a crack cocaine binge.
According to court records, Malone had helped Guardado find a place to stay and a job after he had been in prison. Guardado went to Malone’s home at night on Sept. 13, 2004, and said he needed to use the telephone.
After she let him in, Guardado hit her in the head with a tool known as a breaker bar, stabbed her in the chest, and slit her throat. He took her purse, jewelry box, briefcase, and cellphone.
Guardado pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to death in October 2005. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the sentence in 2007.
Guardado later argued his attorneys were “ineffective” during the penalty phase of the case that resulted in the death sentence. In part, Guardado argued that his attorneys did not properly investigate and present “mitigating” evidence that could have prevented a death sentence and that they did not properly try to prevent three jurors from taking part in the penalty phase.
In 2024, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument.
The execution comes as Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee halted executions in his state and ordered an independent investigation after his state failed to execute Christa Gail Pike last Wednesday night. In May, Tennessee halted another execution when an intravenous line could not be established into an inmate.
Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noting that Thompson “is gravely ill,” last week warned 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.”
Tennessee utilizes a single-drug lethal injection protocol centered on the barbiturate pentobarbital, according to the state’s Department of Corrections.
Florida uses a three-drug lethal injection protocol, using Etomidate, Rocuronium bromide, Potassium acetate, which are sequenced to induce a state of deep unconsciousness and sedation, act as a paralytic agent once unconsciousness is established, and applied to stop cardiac functions.
Because of a shrinking supply, Florida stopped using pentobarbital sodium as part of its triple-drug cocktail in 2013.
Source: sun-sentinel.com, Jim Turner, October 5, 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
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
Death Penalty News
For a World without the Death Penalty
Comments
Post a Comment
Offensive pro-DP comments will not be published.