Florida is executing people faster than it has in almost a century, and it is the same state most likely to have condemned an innocent one. Both things are true at once, and together they should stop us cold. In 2025 the state executed 19 men, the most in 90 years and about 40% of all executions in the country, and the governor has kept signing death warrants into 2026.
Florida also leads the nation in death-row exonerations. Thirty people sentenced to die here were later cleared, more than in any other state. That is not a talking point. It is 30 times the system got it wrong badly enough to send an innocent person toward the death chamber before someone caught it.
The two facts are connected. A 2023 law lets a jury recommend a death sentence by a vote of 8 to 4, without agreement. In one review, 92% of Florida's exonerees had been condemned by juries that were not unanimous. Speeding up executions while allowing split-jury death sentences increases the odds of the one mistake that can never be undone.
I am asking you to restore the requirement that a jury be unanimous before anyone is sentenced to death in Florida, and to pause executions long enough to review cases decided by non-unanimous juries or carrying unresolved innocence claims. Whatever one thinks of the death penalty, no one should support executing an innocent person for the sake of speed.
