Florida executes James Robertson, the state's 17th execution of 2026

DeSantis withdrew Thompson’s death warrant Friday, citing a medical evaluation and lawyer’s assessment that he may be insane

Florida state corrections officials executed James Robertson, 63, on Tuesday at Florida State Prison in Raiford, marking the state’s 17th execution of 2026. A spokesperson for the state corrections department, Jordan Kirkland, told reporters Robertson was pronounced dead after receiving a three-shot series of lethal injections. “The sentence of the state of Florida versus James Robertson was carried out at 12:32 p.m. [Tuesday],” Kirkland said at a news conference immediately after the procedure. “The execution took place without incident.”

Robertson had pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of Frank Hart, his cellmate at the Charlotte correction institution near Fort Myers. According to The Guardian, Robertson “confessed he committed the crime unprovoked because he wanted to be on death row.” A circuit court in Charlotte County accepted his October 5 request to withdraw all appeals. Robertson was 17 when he was first sentenced to prison in 1980 for burglary and assault, and he received additional prison time for several assaults he committed while incarcerated.

The execution was Florida’s first since Tennessee authorities attempted to execute Christa Pike on September 30 with two doses of pentobarbital before abandoning the procedure. Pike was discharged from a hospital on Saturday, ten days later, and returned to prison. Her lawyers have asked for her sentence, for the 1995 murder of a 19-year-old classmate, to be commuted to life without parole. Tennessee authorities have not announced whether they plan to seek another execution date for Pike.

Florida’s use of the death penalty has come under increased scrutiny since the September 30 failure to execute Pike. Kirkland was asked at a pre-execution press conference how prison authorities could guarantee that the Tennessee failure would not be repeated. “Florida has a sound lethal injection process and protocol,” he said, adding that he could not speak about what happened in Tennessee. “We are very committed to carrying that out in a humane and dignified manner.”

According to the Florida corrections department’s website, all executions in the state are carried out with a three-drug protocol: a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart.

Hart’s daughter, Rebecca, who witnessed Tuesday’s execution, broke down in tears as she spoke at the media briefing. “Nothing that had happened today will bring my father back,” she said. “I need to honor him, to speak his name, and to make sure that the man at the center of the story is not forgotten.” “Today, through all the pain, I’m here for my daddy,” Rebecca added. Hart had been imprisoned since 2003 on a sexual battery conviction.

Independent journalist John Koch, who said he has witnessed more than 100 Florida executions, told the YouTube channel JLR Investigates that Robertson, when asked if he had final words, replied: “Nah, I’m straight.” Koch said the procedure took about ten minutes and that Robertson looked around the room and acknowledged people in the gallery before the first injection was administered.

A second execution scheduled for the same day — that of William Lee Thompson, 74, who kidnapped and murdered a 23-year-old woman in 1976 — was called off after Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday withdrew the death warrant. DeSantis’s order cited a medical evaluation and an assessment from Thompson’s lawyer that “Thompson may be insane.” Attorneys for Thompson claim he is suffering from dementia and believed George W Bush was still president. Thompson remains on death row, and a new warrant could still be signed. The Guardian reported that Robertson’s execution resumed what it described as the aggressive pace of executions pursued by DeSantis, who is set to leave office in January.

If the state proceeds with scheduled executions of William Reaves, 77, on October 20 for the 1986 murder of a sheriff’s deputy in Indian River County, and Jesse Guardado, 64, on November 5 for the murder of a 74-year-old woman in Walton County in 2004, Florida would tie its 2025 modern-day record of 19 executions in a calendar year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.