10/01/2026
Florida Is Accelerating Executions.
But with the Most Death Row Exonerations in the Country, Transparency is Critical.
The State of Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike last night. It failed.
Pike laid on the ex*****on table with an audience watching, according to the Associated Press.
Tennessee administered a dose of pentobarbital, but Pike remained alive and talking, complaining about pain. They tried again, injecting another dose of the drug meant to kill her. Nothing. They gave up and took her to a hospital.
Tennessee's Department of Correction says it followed its established ex*****on protocol. Governor Bill Lee responded by halting the state's remaining ex*****on for 2026 and ordering an outside review of what happened.
But this was not even Tennessee's first failed ex*****on attempt this year. In May, Tennessee called off the ex*****on of Tony Carruthers after officials were unable to establish the backup IV line required by the state's protocol and then unsuccessfully attempted to place a central line. Governor Lee granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve.
When something goes wrong with the government's method of ex*****on, Tennessee has chosen to stop and examine it.
Here in Florida, we are moving in a very different direction.
Florida has performed more than half of every ex*****on in America in 2026. Through September 29, Florida executed 16 people, while only 29 ex*****ons have occurred in the entire United States. And that follows 19 Florida ex*****ons in 2025—the most in any year since capital punishment resumed in the modern era and more than twice Florida's previous annual record of eight. That's 35 ex*****ons in Florida in less than two years.
Florida has put ex*****ons into an express lane.
That makes another Florida tradition particularly important: government in the sunshine.
Our state Constitution gives every person a right to inspect public records made or received in connection with official government business, subject to lawful exemptions. That's not some technical rule lawyers invented. Florida put that right in its Constitution.
Yet when it comes to ex*****ons, important parts of the process happen behind a curtain. Florida law makes confidential information that would identify a person or entity involved in supplying, manufacturing, purchasing, preparing, distributing or providing the drugs, chemicals, supplies or equipment used in an ex*****on.
This is not a hypothetical concern raised after what happened in Tennessee.
Earlier this year, prior to his ex*****on, Florida death-row prisoner Chadwick Willacy sought records concerning ex*****on-team training and other records related to compliance with the lethal-injection protocol. The Florida Supreme Court ultimately upheld the denial of those requests because Willacy had not tied them to an existing colorable postconviction claim.
Then there was James Hitchcock.
Hitchcock specifically told the courts he was not claiming Florida's lethal-injection protocol itself was unconstitutional. He sought records to determine whether the Department of Corrections was following its own policies and procedures. His expert submitted an affidavit warning that errors or deviations from the protocol could cause unnecessary pain or even result in an ex*****on procedure ending before the inmate's death. The courts denied the request for records and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed that ruling.
Months later, another state attempted an ex*****on that ended with the condemned person still alive and being transported to a hospital.
That does not prove there is something wrong with Florida's ex*****on protocol. It does demonstrate why questions about compliance, training, drugs, equipment and safeguards are not frivolous questions.
And there is another number Floridians should know.
The Death Penalty Information Center confirms that Florida has exonerated more people from death row than any state in the country. Florida is one of the few states nevertheless that allows a jury to recommend death on an 8-4 vote, instead of being unanimous.
People of good faith can disagree about capital punishment. FACDL's point here is more basic.
When government exercises the most irreversible power it possesses, scrutiny is not an inconvenience. Defense lawyers asking whether the State is following its own rules are not obstructing the justice system. That is the justice system.
The horrific crimes underlying death sentences should never be minimized, and neither should the suffering of victims and their families. But accountability for a crime and accountability for government are not mutually exclusive.
If Florida is going to operate an express lane to the ex*****on chamber while other states are stopping to examine whether their systems work, Floridians deserve to understand exactly how ours works.
The faster government moves toward an irreversible result, the stronger the case for sunlight becomes.
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