Florida just set a death penalty record nobody thought they'd see.
The numbers are staggering and they're raising eyebrows across the country.
And Ron DeSantis just smashed Florida's execution record with one brutal number.
DeSantis Signs 19 Death Warrants in Single Year
Florida executed 19 prisoners in 2025 — the most since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.¹
Governor Ron DeSantis averaged two death warrants per month this year after going years without signing any.
The previous modern-era record was eight executions in both 1984 and 2014.
DeSantis signed just one death warrant in 2024 and six in 2023.
From 2020 through 2022, Florida didn't carry out a single execution.²
Now the state is responsible for 40% of all executions nationwide this year.
Texas, which once dominated death penalty statistics with 17 executions in 2010, carried out only five this year.
Florida's 19 executions doubled the next closest state.³
The executed prisoners spent an average of 31 years on death row.
Bryan Jennings, executed in November, had been there 45 years — sentenced to death in 1979 for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash in Brevard County.⁴
DeSantis will leave office as Florida's most prolific execution governor.
With 28 executions during his seven years in office and a year remaining in his term, he's already matched Rick Scott's total from eight years as Governor.
https://twitter.com/DeathPenaltyAct/status/2003185497674281437?s=20
Governor Defends Execution Surge
DeSantis offered his explanation at a Jacksonville news conference last month.
"There's a saying, 'Justice delayed is justice denied,'" DeSantis said.
"I felt that I owed it to them to make sure that this ran very smoothly and promptly."⁵
The Governor claimed families of murder victims had been waiting decades for justice.
"Some of these crimes were committed in the '80s," DeSantis explained.
"And they wait, and there's an appeal in this and that."
He suggested the death penalty could be "a strong deterrent" to crime if carried out swiftly.
DeSantis said he "kind of felt like I may have been letting some of them down" by not signing death warrants earlier in his tenure.
https://twitter.com/ReOpenChris/status/1985379635362922593?s=20
The explanation doesn't add up.
DeSantis has been Governor since 2019.
He signed just nine death warrants in his first six years.
Then suddenly he signed 19 in one year.
Maria DeLiberato, legal and policy director for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, questioned the Governor's explanation.
She noted that victims' families in at least two cases this year opposed the executions.⁶
"The only thing we can point to is politics," DeLiberato said.
"That's the only thing that is different."
Controversial Cases Raise Questions About Justice
Several of this year's executions involved defendants who argued intellectual disability prohibited their death sentences.
David Pittman, condemned for a 1988 triple murder in Polk County, had well-documented intellectual impairments.
Federal case law forbids executing people with such disabilities.
The Florida Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision and held that the bar against executing people with intellectual disabilities did not apply retroactively.
Pittman was executed in September.⁷
Victor Tony Jones, condemned for a double murder in Miami, also argued intellectual disability claims.
He too was executed this fall.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/1989028488779628666?s=20
Jeffrey Hutchinson, a Persian Gulf War veteran convicted in shotgun slayings, argued his exposure to chemical weapons in combat resulted in Gulf War illness.
He was executed in May.⁸
DeSantis, himself a former Navy JAG officer who served in Iraq, ignored pleas from veteran advocates about the disproportionate number of former service members he sent to the execution chamber.
Seven of the 19 people executed this year were military veterans.
State Prosecutors Openly Defy Supreme Court
The Florida Legislature tweaked the state's death penalty statute in 2023 to allow capital punishment in cases of child rape.
That law directly contradicts established U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
In Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), the high court ruled the death penalty for crimes other than homicide is unconstitutional.⁹
State prosecutors are seeking death anyway.
Palm Beach County prosecutors announced in October they'd seek death sentences for Josue Mendez Sales and Pablo Cobon Mendez, accused of sexually abusing a 6-year-old girl.
Prosecutors in Hernando County announced they would seek death for Nathan Douglas Holmberg, accused of raping a child.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier acknowledged the Kennedy ruling but said he believes the Supreme Court should overturn that decision.
"We believe that today's Supreme Court should reevaluate and reinterpret the law to allow this form of justice," Uthmeier said.¹⁰
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/1962913668087054635?s=20
Translation: Florida's going to ignore the Supreme Court and dare them to do something about it.
DeSantis is term-limited and in his final year as Governor.
Critics allege the execution spree is an attempt to prove his tough-on-crime credentials to a national audience ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run.
The timing is suspicious.
DeSantis signed six death warrants in 2023 — the year he challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.
He signed one in 2024.
Then 19 in 2025 as he positions himself for another run.
House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell acknowledged she might sound "cynical" but suggested DeSantis's political ambitions explain the surge.
"This is a governor who's been so focused on his own ambitions, his personal ambitions, he wants to impress Republican primary voters," Driskell said.¹¹
Florida executed people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness.
The state ignored veteran status and decades-long waits for inmates on death row.
Prosecutors are openly defying the Supreme Court.
DeSantis claims it's about justice for victims' families.
The families who opposed executions would disagree.
The surge in death warrants coinciding with his presidential ambitions tells a different story.
Florida didn't just break its execution record in 2025.
The state cut corners on constitutional protections and ignored pleas from the public.
That's not justice.
That's politics written in blood.
¹ Dan Sullivan, "Florida set a record for executions in 2025. What to know," Tampa Bay Times, December 20, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ CBS News, "Florida governor signs death warrant for serial killer as state sets record pace for executions," November 19, 2025.
⁴ Sullivan, Tampa Bay Times, December 20, 2025.
⁵ I- ¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ WUSF, "Gov. Ron DeSantis says executions are about justice amid modern-era record," November 4, 2025.
