Florida sets double execution for Oct. 13

Florida plans to execute two men on the same day, Oct. 13, after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant Thursday for James Robertson, a 63-year-old inmate who killed his cellmate in 2008 and later said he did it to get to death row. Robertson is scheduled to die by lethal injection at noon at Florida State Prison. Six hours later, the state plans to execute William "Bill" Thompson, 74, who has spent nearly half a century on death row for the 1976 torture and murder of a young woman in a Miami-area motel room.

It will be the second time this year that Florida has scheduled two executions on a single day, a pace without precedent in the state's modern history of capital punishment. CBS Miami described Robertson's warrant as DeSantis' 19th of 2026, tying the record number set last year, when Florida carried out 19 executions, the most since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.

A third execution is set for Oct. 20, when the state plans to put to death William Reaves, who was convicted of killing an Indian River County sheriff's deputy in 1986.

The upcoming execution schedule

All three executions are scheduled at Florida State Prison, the maximum-security prison near Raiford in Bradford County, about 45 miles southwest of Jacksonville. Florida's death chamber and the state's male death row are located in the prison system's facilities in the Raiford and Starke area.

James Robertson: a killing to reach death row

Robertson was already serving a prison sentence when he strangled his cellmate, Frank Hart, at Charlotte Correctional Institution in Punta Gorda in 2008. According to court records and published reports, he used a garrote made from socks tied together. Robertson pleaded guilty, and he was sentenced to death on Dec. 18, 2012.

Robertson has said publicly that he killed Hart to escape the conditions he was living in and to get to death row. In a 2018 Netflix documentary series, he described wanting to get out of prison conditions he compared to solitary confinement, and said that a death sentence was his goal. Courts have reviewed his case in the years since, and his guilty plea and stated wishes have shaped the legal path of his appeals.

Cases in which inmates seek a death sentence raise unusual legal and ethical questions. Courts generally must determine that a defendant is competent and that a waiver of rights or a guilty plea is knowing and voluntary, and prosecutors still must establish the aggravating factors that make a defendant eligible for the death penalty under Florida law.

William Thompson: nearly five decades on death row

Thompson was condemned for the March 1976 murder of Sally Ivester, a 23-year-old Georgia woman who was visiting South Florida. Prosecutors said Ivester was beaten with chains, burned with cigarettes and sexually assaulted inside a motel room in the Sunny Isles area of Miami-Dade County. Thompson, then 23, was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery. A co-defendant was also prosecuted in the case.

Only three men have been on Florida's death row longer than Thompson, according to published reports, and he is Miami-Dade County's longest-serving death row inmate. His case has been sent back for resentencing twice because of legal errors, and each time he was again sentenced to death.

Thompson's lawyers and advocates describe him as gravely ill. They say he has suffered from conditions including sepsis, heart failure and dementia, and they have argued that his health raises serious questions about whether a lethal injection could be carried out without complications. The state has not suggested it will delay the execution because of those claims.

A botched execution in Tennessee

The Oct. 13 executions are approaching days after a failed lethal injection in Tennessee drew national attention. Tennessee officials halted the execution of Christa Pike nearly two hours after the lethal injection process began, according to reports, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee then paused executions in his state. It was the second time in five months that Tennessee had been unable to complete an execution, according to WGCU.

Maria DeLiberato, legal and policy director for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told the Florida Phoenix that what happened in Tennessee should force an urgent reckoning in Florida. She pointed specifically to Thompson's age and medical conditions, arguing that his health raises serious concerns about what could happen during an attempted lethal injection.

Florida uses a three-drug lethal injection protocol. State officials have defended the procedure and the state's record of carrying out executions. Defense lawyers routinely raise challenges to lethal injection methods and to individual inmates' medical conditions in the days before a scheduled execution, but courts have rarely blocked Florida executions on those grounds.

Florida leads the nation

Florida has driven a national increase in executions since DeSantis resumed signing death warrants at a rapid pace in 2025. The state carried out 19 executions last year, more than double its previous single-year record of eight, set in 2018. Through September of this year, Florida accounted for 15 of the 28 executions carried out nationwide, more than half, according to execution tracking data.

The pace has brought a series of milestones. Dennis Sochor, 74, who was executed July 14 for a 1981 murder in Broward County, was briefly the oldest person executed in Florida's modern era. He was later surpassed by Dominick Occhicone, who was older when he was executed. Thompson, at 74, would be among the oldest people put to death in the state.

Supporters of the death penalty, including DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier, have argued that the executions deliver long-delayed justice for victims and their families, many of whom have waited decades. Critics, including defense lawyers, religious leaders and abolition groups, say the pace leaves too little time for thorough legal review and point to the advanced age and health of many of the men being executed.

Florida's death penalty laws have also changed during DeSantis' tenure. In 2023, the Legislature eliminated the requirement for a unanimous jury recommendation in death penalty sentencing, allowing a death sentence when at least eight of 12 jurors agree, the lowest threshold of any state that uses capital punishment. The same year, lawmakers authorized the death penalty for the sexual battery of a child under 12, a law designed to test the limits of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Those changes affect new prosecutions, while the men facing execution this fall were sentenced under earlier rules.

DeSantis is term-limited and will leave office in January 2027. Death penalty opponents have said they expect the pace of warrants to continue through the end of his term, and the policy is likely to come up in the race to succeed him. Candidates' positions on the death penalty, and whether the next governor will sign warrants at a similar rate, will shape how quickly the cases of the men and women remaining on Florida's death row move toward execution in the years ahead.

William Reaves and the Oct. 20 execution

Reaves was convicted of killing Indian River County Deputy Richard Raczkowski outside a convenience store near Vero Beach on Sept. 23, 1986. According to court records summarized in news reports, Reaves had called 911 from a pay phone seeking a ride, and Raczkowski responded. A struggle followed, and Reaves shot the deputy four times in the back.

Reaves was arrested days later and convicted of first-degree murder in 1987. A jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. DeSantis signed his death warrant in September, setting the Oct. 20 execution date.

How Florida's death warrant process works

Under Florida law, the governor alone decides when to sign a death warrant for an inmate who has exhausted the standard appeals process and whose clemency review has concluded. Once a warrant is signed, the execution is typically scheduled roughly 30 days later, a period in which defense lawyers file final appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and federal courts.

The Florida Supreme Court reviews warrant-stage appeals on an expedited schedule, and inmates may then petition the U.S. Supreme Court. In recent years, those last-minute appeals have almost uniformly been denied, and Florida has carried out the large majority of the executions it has scheduled.

Inmates under an active warrant are moved to a cell near the execution chamber and placed under heightened observation. On the day of an execution, witnesses, including members of the victim's family, members of the media and state officials, are present at the prison.

After an execution, the Florida Department of Corrections typically releases details such as the time of death, the inmate's final statement and last meal, and the state confirms that the sentence was carried out. Victims' relatives sometimes speak to reporters outside the prison afterward.

What's next

Lawyers for Robertson and Thompson are expected to pursue final appeals in the coming days, including arguments related to Thompson's health and the lethal injection protocol. The Florida Supreme Court will set an expedited schedule for briefs and rulings, and any further appeals would go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

If both executions proceed on Oct. 13, Florida will again carry out two death sentences in a single day, followed a week later by the scheduled execution of Reaves. With nearly three months left in the year and the governor continuing to sign warrants, Florida could match or surpass last year's record number of executions before the end of DeSantis' final full year in office.