Florida Carries Out Its 13th Execution of 2026

Florida carried out its 13th execution of 2026 on Tuesday evening, putting to death William Frances Silvia, 61, who was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder in a 2006 shotgun attack that killed his estranged wife and wounded her mother.

Silvia was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was already strapped to the gurney with an intravenous line in place when the curtain to the death chamber opened at 6 p.m., and remained largely motionless during the procedure. A priest sat at his feet and prayed. Asked whether he had any final words, Silvia expressed regret that the events had occurred, according to witness accounts.

The execution continues a pace that has made Florida the most active death penalty jurisdiction in the country this year. Two more executions are scheduled in the state in September, and the annual total already stands well above any prior year in the modern era of capital punishment in Florida.

The case moved through two decades of appellate and postconviction review before reaching this point, a timeline that is close to the national average for capital cases that proceed to execution rather than being resolved through resentencing or reversal.

The underlying case

According to court records, Silvia purchased a shotgun in 2006 and drove to the home of Betty Woodard, his mother-in-law, in the Orlando area. His wife, Patricia Silvia, had been living there since the couple separated two months earlier.

The family was in the middle of a cookout when Silvia arrived. Authorities said that after an unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation, Silvia retrieved the shotgun from his truck and shot both women. Patricia Silvia was killed. Woodard survived her injuries and the attack on her formed the basis of the attempted murder count.

A jury convicted Silvia of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, and the trial court imposed a death sentence. The case then entered the appellate track that every Florida capital sentence follows, beginning with an automatic direct appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

Domestic violence homicides account for a meaningful share of Florida murders in any given year, and cases involving a separated or estranged spouse are a recognized pattern in that category. Advocacy organizations have long identified the period immediately following a separation as one of elevated risk.

Florida's execution pace

Thirteen executions in a calendar year represents an unusually high number by any state's historical standard. Florida's previous record since the death penalty was reinstated nationally in 1976 stood at eight in a single year, set in 2014. The 2026 total has already exceeded that by a substantial margin with more than four months remaining in the year.

Executions in Florida proceed after the governor signs a death warrant, which sets an execution date and starts a defined schedule of legal proceedings that must conclude before the date arrives. The warrant process is discretionary, and the frequency of signings is the single largest determinant of how many executions occur in a given period.

The state uses a three-drug lethal injection protocol administered at Florida State Prison in Bradford County, the facility that houses the state's execution chamber. Florida also retains electrocution as an option a condemned prisoner may elect, and the Legislature has authorized additional methods in recent years, though lethal injection has remained the method used in practice.

Death row in Florida holds several hundred prisoners, a population accumulated over decades of capital sentencing. Most of those cases remain in some stage of appellate or postconviction litigation, and only a small fraction reach an execution date in any given year.

The legal framework

Capital cases in Florida proceed through a lengthy and structured sequence. After conviction and sentence, a direct appeal goes automatically to the Florida Supreme Court, which reviews both the conviction and the proportionality of the sentence. Postconviction proceedings follow in the trial court, where claims including ineffective assistance of counsel are litigated.

Federal review comes next, through habeas corpus petitions in the U.S. District Court, appeals to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and applications to the U.S. Supreme Court. Each stage carries its own procedural requirements, and claims not properly raised at earlier stages are frequently barred from consideration later.

Once a death warrant is signed, that sequence compresses dramatically. Successive postconviction motions, clemency consideration by the governor and cabinet, and emergency stay applications all occur within a matter of weeks. Courts apply demanding standards to claims raised at that stage, generally requiring a showing that the claim could not have been brought earlier.

Florida changed its capital sentencing law in 2023, reducing the jury vote required to recommend a death sentence from unanimous to eight of 12. That change applies to sentencing proceedings going forward and does not disturb sentences already imposed under the prior standard.

What it means for Floridians

Capital punishment remains legal in Florida and is administered by the Department of Corrections. The process is governed by a written protocol the department publishes, covering the composition of the execution team, the drugs used and the sequence of the procedure.

Public opinion on the death penalty in Florida has generally tracked national patterns, with support declining from its peak in the 1990s while remaining a majority position in most polling. Organizations including Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty advocate against the practice and track scheduled executions.

Victim family members are permitted to witness executions under state procedures, as are media representatives and a limited number of other designated witnesses. Media witnesses provide the contemporaneous accounts that form the public record of what occurs inside the chamber.

Costs are a recurring element of the policy debate. Studies in multiple states have found that capital prosecutions and the appellate process that follows cost substantially more than seeking and serving a sentence of life without parole, driven largely by the extended litigation.

The broader national picture

Florida's execution total this year places it well ahead of every other state. The number of jurisdictions carrying out executions has narrowed considerably over the past two decades, with a small group of states accounting for the large majority of the national total in any year.

Several states have paused executions due to difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs, litigation over protocols, or moratoria imposed by governors. Pharmaceutical manufacturers have restricted the sale of certain drugs for use in executions, which created supply problems that some states have not resolved.

Florida has not faced those constraints in the same way, and the state has continued to schedule and carry out executions on the pace the governor's warrant signings establish. That divergence is the principal reason Florida's numbers stand apart nationally this year.

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to revisit the constitutionality of capital punishment as a general matter, while continuing to decide cases about specific procedures, categories of eligibility such as intellectual disability, and method-of-execution challenges.

Local impact across the state

Florida State Prison sits near Starke in Bradford County, a rural North Florida community where the corrections system is among the largest employers. The facility and the neighboring Union Correctional Institution together anchor a significant portion of the local economy.

Execution days draw demonstrators to the area outside the prison, both opponents of capital punishment and, in some cases, supporters. The Department of Corrections coordinates with local law enforcement on access and security around the facility during those periods.

The underlying case in this instance originated in the Orlando area, which means the prosecution, trial and initial appeals ran through the courts serving Orange County. Capital cases are prosecuted by the State Attorney for the circuit where the crime occurred.

Capital defense work in Florida is handled through a combination of the regional Capital Collateral Regional Counsel offices, which represent death-sentenced prisoners in postconviction proceedings, and private counsel appointed in individual cases.

Clemency and the final stage

Florida's clemency process for capital cases runs through the governor and the cabinet sitting as the Board of Executive Clemency. The board has authority to commute a death sentence to life imprisonment, and its decision is discretionary and not subject to judicial review.

In practice, clemency in capital cases has been granted rarely in Florida over the modern era. Petitions typically present arguments about the defendant's background, mental health, disparities in sentencing among co-defendants, or doubts about the underlying conviction.

The clemency stage occurs within the warrant period, which compresses the timeline for gathering and presenting materials. Defense counsel and advocacy organizations frequently coordinate on those submissions, and petitions from religious leaders and victim family members sometimes accompany them.

Because clemency is discretionary and its considerations are not required to be stated publicly, the reasoning behind any particular decision is generally not part of the public record.

How Florida's numbers compare historically

Florida resumed executions in 1979, several years after the U.S. Supreme Court permitted states to reinstate capital punishment under revised sentencing procedures. The state has carried out executions in most years since, at rates that varied considerably with gubernatorial administrations.

Annual totals through most of that period ran in the low single digits. The prior high of eight came in 2014, and years with zero or one execution have also occurred, reflecting how directly the pace depends on warrant signings rather than on the size of death row.

Death sentences imposed by Florida juries have declined over the same period, consistent with a national trend. That decline means the pipeline of new capital cases is smaller than it was in the 1990s, even as executions of prisoners sentenced decades ago have accelerated.

The gap between sentencing and execution has correspondingly widened. Prisoners executed this year were generally sentenced 15 to 30 years ago, which is why current execution totals reflect sentencing patterns from an earlier era rather than current ones.

What's next

Two additional executions are scheduled in Florida in September. Death warrants and scheduled dates are published by the Florida Department of Corrections and announced through the governor's office when warrants are signed.

Postconviction litigation in other Florida capital cases continues in state and federal courts. The Florida Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit handle the largest share of that appellate work, and their published opinions are the primary public record of how those cases are resolved.

Whether the pace established in 2026 continues into next year depends on warrant signings, a discretionary decision that no fixed schedule governs. Advocacy organizations on both sides of the issue track those signings as they occur.

Records in individual capital cases, including trial court files and appellate opinions, are available through the courts with jurisdiction and through the Florida Supreme Court's opinion archive.