Florida Supreme Court rejects Jesse Guardado's appeal, clearing way for Nov. 5 execution

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday, Oct. 29, rejected Jesse Guardado's latest appeal and denied his request for a stay, clearing the way for his scheduled Nov. 5 execution at Florida State Prison for the 2004 killing of Jackie Malone, a 75-year-old DeFuniak Springs woman who had helped him after his release from prison. If it is carried out, Guardado's execution would be Florida's 19th of 2026, matching the state record of 19 executions set in 2025.

Guardado, 64, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the Walton County case and was sentenced to death in October 2005. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant on Oct. 5.

What the court decided

In an unsigned opinion, the justices affirmed a Walton County circuit court order that denied Guardado's successive motion for postconviction relief. "For the reasons that follow, we affirm the denial of postconviction relief. We also deny his request for a stay of execution," the court wrote. The court also said it would not entertain any motion for rehearing.

Guardado's lawyers argued that his original trial attorney was ineffective for several reasons, including failing to object when potential jurors were dismissed, according to WMBB, the Panama City television station that has followed the case. The court found that the circuit court correctly denied those claims. Guardado also challenged the state's clemency process. In rejecting that claim, the court pointed out that his warrant states clemency was considered under Florida's Rules of Executive Clemency and that "it has been determined that executive clemency is not appropriate."

In what WMBB described as an unusual step, the justices also warned Guardado's attorneys that they do not have a license to file frivolous claims in postconviction court or before the Supreme Court, even when a death warrant is active.

The ruling followed a compressed warrant schedule. The circuit court held a hearing on Oct. 14 and concluded Guardado was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing, then entered its order summarily denying his motion on Oct. 19, according to the opinion. His attorneys filed their appeal with the Supreme Court that same day.

The killing of Jackie Malone

According to court records cited in news coverage of the warrant, Malone had helped Guardado find a place to stay and a job after he was released from prison. On Sept. 13, 2004, while on a crack cocaine binge, he struck her in the head with a breaker bar, stabbed her in the chest and slit her throat at her Walton County home. He then took her purse, jewelry box, briefcase and cell phone. WMBB has reported that he killed her to get money for drugs.

Guardado pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and robbery with a weapon. Because he admitted the crime, the case went straight to a penalty phase, where a jury heard evidence about aggravating and mitigating factors and returned a unanimous recommendation that he be sentenced to death, according to the Florida Supreme Court's later rulings in the case.

Two decades of appeals

Like most Florida death cases, Guardado's has moved through state and federal courts for roughly two decades. The table below summarizes the main steps.

In his federal case, Guardado argued that his lawyers were ineffective during the penalty phase, including by failing to investigate and present mitigating evidence and by failing to properly address three jurors. A three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit rejected that argument in 2024.

Florida's death penalty law and the jury vote

The unanimous jury recommendation has mattered in Guardado's case because of how much Florida's capital sentencing law has shifted since he was sentenced. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that the state's system, which let judges impose death after a jury's advisory recommendation, violated the Sixth Amendment. The Legislature then required unanimous jury recommendations for death. In 2017, the Florida Supreme Court agreed Hurst applied to Guardado but found the error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because his jury had voted unanimously for death.

Florida later moved in the opposite direction. In 2023, after a jury failed to unanimously recommend death for the Parkland school shooter, DeSantis signed a law allowing death sentences on the recommendation of at least eight of 12 jurors, the lowest threshold of any state that allows the death penalty. That change does not affect Guardado, whose jury was unanimous, but it has shaped the wider debate over the state's record pace of executions.

Florida carries out executions by lethal injection using a three-drug protocol of etomidate, rocuronium bromide and potassium acetate, according to WUSF.

A record pace of executions

Florida executed 19 people in 2025, the most in a single year since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. The state has kept nearly the same pace in 2026. When DeSantis signed Guardado's warrant on Oct. 5, news reports described it as the warrant for Florida's 20th execution of the year, counting three other executions then scheduled over the following two weeks.

One of those did not happen. On Oct. 8, DeSantis withdrew the death warrant for William Lee Thompson, 74, who had been set to die Oct. 13, after his lawyers and death penalty opponents raised concerns about dementia and heart failure, according to CBS Miami. James Robertson was executed Oct. 13 in the state's 17th execution of the year, and William Reaves, 77, convicted of the 1986 killing of Indian River County Deputy Richard Raczkowski, was executed Oct. 20 as the 18th, according to Associated Press reports. That makes Guardado's scheduled execution the 19th of 2026.

DeSantis signed another warrant, for Thomas Overton in a 1990s Florida Keys double murder, the day after Reaves was executed. If both executions proceed, Overton's would be the state's 20th this year and would set a new annual record.

What's next

With the state Supreme Court's ruling, Guardado's remaining options for halting the execution lie in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, or with the governor. Absent a stay, he is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Thursday, Nov. 5, at Florida State Prison near Raiford.