Florida is once again at the center of a heated national debate over capital punishment, as Governor Ron DeSantis sets a record-breaking pace for executions in 2025. With the scheduled deaths of David Joseph Pittman on September 17, Samuel Lee Smithers on October 14, and Victor Tony Jones on September 30, the Sunshine State has executed more people this year than any other state, raising alarm among legal experts, civil rights advocates, and families alike.
According to the Associated Press, Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, is slated to die by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on October 14. Smithers, a former Plant City church deacon, was convicted in 1999 for the brutal 1996 murders of Christy Cowan and Denise Roach, whose bodies were discovered in a rural pond. The case, which later became the subject of a true crime book by Fred Rosen, revealed a shocking double life. Smithers was seen as a quiet, religious family man by his neighbors and church community, but to the women who worked as prostitutes along Tampa’s East Hillsborough Avenue, he was a familiar—and ultimately deadly—presence.
As detailed by the Tampa Bay Times, on the evening of May 28, 1996, Marion Whitehurst, an elementary school teacher who knew Smithers through his wife, stopped by a vacant home she owned and found Smithers cleaning a long-handled axe. He pointed out a pool of blood, attributing it to a killed animal, but Whitehurst grew uneasy. Later, she noticed drag marks leading to a nearby pond, where sheriff’s deputies ultimately discovered the bodies of Cowan and Roach. Both women had been severely beaten, strangled, and left in the water. Smithers initially denied involvement but later confessed under police questioning, admitting to striking Cowan with the axe and dragging her to the pond while she was still alive. His story shifted again at trial, claiming the killings were part of an elaborate blackmail and drug scheme, but the jury was unconvinced, taking just 90 minutes to return a guilty verdict and unanimously recommending the death penalty.
Smithers’ case is not unique in Florida’s current climate. The execution of David Joseph Pittman, set for September 17, has drawn even sharper scrutiny. As reported by Slate, Pittman, convicted for his role in a triple homicide 35 years ago, is severely intellectually disabled, with an IQ of 70 measured before age 18. His lawyers describe his cognitive impairments as so profound that he “has trouble reading basic words like ‘dog’” and “often needs to have things explained to him repeatedly.” Pittman’s fate has been entangled in a legal morass ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling prohibiting the execution of intellectually disabled individuals. Although the Florida Supreme Court initially decided in 2016 that this prohibition should apply retroactively, a more conservative court later reversed itself, leaving Pittman with no further recourse.
The process by which these death warrants are issued has itself come under fire. As Slate notes, Governor DeSantis signed Pittman’s death warrant in secret on August 15, 2025. Florida law gives the governor broad discretion to issue death warrants once all appeals are exhausted, with no obligation to review the legal proceedings, determine competency, or guard against racial discrimination. “At one time, most execution warrants were issued solely by governors,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). “In recent decades, legislatures generally expanded the role of the judiciary, requiring the courts to weigh in before an execution is set.”
Yet in Florida, the governor’s power remains nearly unchecked. The DPIC reports that of the 40 active death warrants issued in the United States so far in 2025, more than a third have come from DeSantis alone. Florida has executed more people this year than any other state, surpassing its previous annual record of eight executions, most recently set in 2014. In stark contrast, states like Pennsylvania, which also give the governor warrant authority, have not executed anyone in over 25 years and maintain a moratorium on executions.
Concerns about transparency and fairness are not merely procedural. The Southern Poverty Law Center has flagged “significant and obvious evidence of racial bias and arbitrariness in the warrant selection process.” In the past five years, 94% of Florida’s executions have involved white victims, and since 1976, only two executions in cases not involving a white victim had a white defendant. Not a single execution in that period involved a white person killing a Black person. Whether intentional or not, such disparities are, as legal scholars point out, constitutionally suspect and raise troubling questions about the impartiality of the state’s ultimate punishment.
Legal experts argue that the secrecy and lack of accountability in Florida’s death warrant process undermine basic constitutional protections. Professor Lee Kovarsky, cited by Slate, notes that a governor is unlikely to “sort inmates by death-worthiness—things like offense conduct, blame, or future dangerousness.” Instead, the process risks being arbitrary or influenced by political considerations. The American Bar Association warns that “a state’s decision to set an execution date may significantly alter the framework under which the prisoner’s legal claims are resolved, increasing the difficulty of obtaining substantive relief and decreasing the chances that any court will even hear the merits of the claim.” This is especially concerning in cases where innocence claims are still pending, as the execution could result in the “ultimate injustice.”
Other states have built in safeguards that Florida lacks. For example, Oregon law requires a trial court hearing before a death warrant can be issued, with the defendant present and represented by counsel. The judge must determine if the defendant intends to pursue further legal challenges and must make findings on the record regarding the defendant’s mental state. Such procedures, observers argue, could have made a critical difference for individuals like Pittman.
Meanwhile, the pace of executions in Florida shows no sign of slowing. The August 28 execution of Curtis Windom, convicted of a 1992 triple murder, marked the most recent case before Smithers and Pittman. With 30 people executed nationwide so far in 2025, Florida leads the way, accounting for nearly half the total. Governor DeSantis, who previously went for long stretches without signing death warrants, has now surpassed all his predecessors in a single year.
For the families of victims, the legal community, and the wider public, the state’s approach to capital punishment is both a source of closure and a cause for deep concern. As the debate over the death penalty continues, Florida’s unprecedented execution rate and the controversies surrounding its process have thrust the state into the national spotlight, forcing Americans to confront uncomfortable questions about justice, fairness, and the power of government over life and death.
With the scheduled deaths of Smithers, Pittman, and Jones looming, Florida’s death chamber remains a focus of fierce debate and soul-searching, as the state’s leaders and citizens grapple with the consequences of a system that, for now, shows no sign of slowing down.
