Florida Executed a Record 19 People in 2025. The Executions Have Continued in 2026.

Florida executions in 2025 and 2026 have drawn renewed attention to capital sentencing, appellate review, and warrant-stage litigation. Natalie Lopez’s article places the current pace in context while emphasizing the legal process behind the numbers.

The firm represents clients facing serious violent-crime allegations in South Florida.

Florida’s use of the death penalty has accelerated. In 2025, Florida executed 19 people, the highest number of executions carried out by the State in a single year since the modern death penalty era began. Before 2025, Florida’s previous record was eight executions in a year. The pace has continued into 2026.

As of August 2026, Florida has already carried out 13 executions, again leading the country in the use of capital punish

For criminal defense attorneys handling homicide and capital cases, these numbers matter. A death sentence is not theoretical. Florida is actively signing death warrants and carrying them out, including in cases where the underlying murders occurred decades ago.

Florida’s Final Execution of 2025: Frank Athen Walls

Florida closed out 2025 with the execution of Frank Athen Walls on December 18, 2025.

Walls, 58, was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison for the 1987 murders of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson during a home invasion. He had originally been convicted and sentenced to death in 1988. After the Florida Supreme Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial, Walls was again convicted and sentenced to death in 1992.

His execution was Florida’s 19th of 2025 and established a new state record.

That figure becomes even more striking when viewed nationally. Forty-seven people were executed throughout the entire United States in 2025. Florida alone accounted for 19 of them. 

Florida Continued Executions in 2026

Florida did not slow down when the calendar changed.

The State resumed executions in February 2026 and continued carrying them out throughout the year.

By June, Florida had already reached eight executions. Andrew Richard Lukehart was executed on June 2 for the 1996 killing of his girlfriend’s five-month-old daughter. Later that month, 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer was executed for the 1992 murder of his wife, Karen Spencer. At the time, Spencer became the oldest person executed in modern Florida history. 

That record did not stand for long. Dennis Sochor, also 74, was executed on July 14, 2026, for the 1982 murder of 18-year-old Patricia Gifford.

Then Florida did something it had not done in more than 60 years.

Two Florida Executions in One Day

On July 28, 2026, Florida executed two people on the same day. James Aren Duckett, 68, was executed for the 1987 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

Later that same day, Florida executed Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, for the 1986 murders of his former girlfriend’s parents. Occhicone became the oldest person executed in Florida and one of the oldest people executed in the United States during the modern death penalty era.

The two executions brought Florida’s total to 12 for the year.

Florida’s Most Recent Execution

On August 18, 2026, Florida executed William Frances Silvia, 61.

Silvia was sentenced to death for the 2006 murder of his estranged wife, Patricia Silvia, and was also convicted of attempting to murder her mother. He was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison and pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. 

His death marked Florida’s 13th execution of 2026.

At that point, Florida alone had carried out more than half of all executions in the United States during 2026. 

Florida’s Death Penalty Is Being Actively Used

The significance of these numbers goes beyond statistics.

Many of the people executed in 2025 and 2026 had been sentenced to death decades earlier. Their cases had moved through direct appeals, postconviction litigation, federal habeas proceedings, clemency requests, death warrant litigation, and last-minute applications for stays before the sentences were ultimately carried out.

A death sentence can remain pending for decades.

But it remains a death sentence.

Florida’s recent execution record demonstrates that the State is currently willing to carry those sentences out, even in cases involving convictions from the 1980s and 1990s.

That reality is particularly important when considered alongside Florida’s 2023 change to its capital sentencing law. Florida now permits a jury to recommend death by a vote of 8-4 once the jury has unanimously found at least one statutory aggravating factor.

Florida therefore has both a lower threshold for a death recommendation than it had several years ago and one of the most active execution systems in the country.

For anyone facing a capital prosecution, the distinction is critical.

Natalie Lopez Attorney at Law, P.A. represents individuals facing homicide and other serious felony charges throughout South Florida.

What Florida’s Execution Pace Means for Capital Litigation

The number of Florida executions in 2025 and 2026 is important, but the legal process behind each case is equally important. Capital litigation can include challenges to the conviction, the sentence, the jury’s findings, the effectiveness of counsel, access to evidence, execution protocols, and the timing of warrant proceedings.

Because warrant dates and court rulings can change quickly, current status should be confirmed through official records, including the Florida Department of Corrections and the courts handling a particular case. News summaries cannot replace the underlying orders and docket.

Serious Felony Allegations Require an Early Defense Strategy

Capital cases sit at the far end of Florida’s criminal punishment system, but the need for careful evidence preservation begins at the start of any serious felony investigation. Statements, digital records, forensic evidence, expert opinions, and witness accounts should be evaluated before assumptions harden into the State’s theory.

Natalie Lopez, Esq. represents people facing serious criminal accusations in South Florida. Review the firm’s violent-crimes defense services, read about what happens when someone is accused of a violent crime in Fort Lauderdale, or request a confidential consultation.