TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Attorneys for Kayle Barrington Bates (Maud Dib Al Sharif Qu’un) have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Governor Ron DeSantis in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The lawsuit argues that Florida’s execution warrant process is infected with racial discrimination and unconstitutional arbitrariness. Mr. Bates is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. ET.
Mr. Bates, a Black Muslim man, was originally sentenced to death in 1983 by an all-white jury in Bay County, following a deeply flawed trial process. Police interrogated him for more than five hours without legal counsel, abused him with racial slurs, and threatened him into making a confession. He was later re-sentenced to death in 1995 by a non-unanimous jury vote of 9-3. In no other state in the nation would he be eligible for execution.
The complaint, filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, including a stay of execution. Additional filings in support of Mr. Bates’ claims are expected tomorrow.
Mr. Bates’ complaint presents compelling statistical evidence of racial disparities in Florida’s use of the death penalty and argues that Governor DeSantis has overseen an execution warrant process that disproportionately targets Black men and prioritizes cases involving white victims:
- Nationally, fewer than 41% of homicide victims are white, yet 76% of executions since 1976 have involved white victims.
- Florida surpasses the national average with 88% of all executions involving white victims.
- 95% of the executions that Governor DeSantis has authorized involved white victims.
- Not once in Florida’s modern history has a white person been executed solely for killing a Black victim.
Mr. Bates’ attorneys argue that “Florida’s current prioritization of white lives cannot be viewed independently of its devaluation of Black lives.” Even if these disparities are not the product of intentional racial discrimination, they reflect an impermissible degree of arbitrariness that still violates the U.S. Constitution.
Shockingly, just two hours after the lawsuit was filed, the Governor signed a death warrant for Curtis Windom, a Black man sentenced to death for killing three Black victims. The timing of the Windom warrant is particularly curious as it marked the first time in recent Florida history that three men were on death watch at the same time facing execution.
Indeed, the Governor’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed this week, used the Windom warrant signing to pad its statistics and try to undermine the objective data set forth by Mr. Bates.
The State points to the fact that five of the 30 victims connected to the 21 death warrants signed by Governor DeSantis are Black, approximately 16%, as “exceptionally strong proof of non-discrimination.” The State notes that this is slightly greater than the Black population of Florida (15%) but again fails to acknowledge that — but for the retaliatory signing of the Windom warrant — there would only be two Black victims, or 7%, which still supports the claim that the warrant selection process is infected with racial bias.
Former Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman explains, “I had a chance to commute death sentences to life in prison without parole. I didn’t but have lived to regret it. Because of flaws in our justice system, on average since 1976, we have gotten it wrong about 12% of the time. Our death penalty sentencing laws are legally and morally troubling. I am especially concerned about Florida, where the execution selection process is shrouded in secrecy and is, in fact, marred by racial bias. Can’t we all agree that a secret process to select those whom the state executes erodes the public’s faith that the law is being fairly applied?”
Former Florida Supreme Court Justice James Perry wisely noted in his 2016 dissenting opinion in Asay v. State, 210 So. 3d 1, 37 (Fla. 2016) that “71 percent of the executions carried out against Black inmates were for homicides involving White victims. This sad statistic is a reflection of the bitter reality that the death penalty is applied in a biased and discriminatory fashion, even today.”
Nearly a decade later, this bitter reality still rings true. “This lawsuit, and the State’s shocking response, coupled with the retaliatory signing of the Windom warrant, lays bare what we have been saying for years: Florida’s death penalty is broken beyond repair, based on politics and power, and fueled by racial bias,” said Maria DeLiberato, Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP).
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FADP is a Florida-based, statewide organization of individuals and groups working together to end the death penalty in Florida. Our network includes dozens of state and local groups and thousands of individual Floridians, including murder victims’ family members and other survivors of violent crime, law enforcement professionals, families of the incarcerated, and death row exonerees.