On March 3, 2026, the State of Florida intends to execute Billy Leon Kearse, now 53 years old, for a crime he committed as an 18-year-old. Kearse’s death warrant was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, making him the third person scheduled to die in Florida in 2026 — a continuation of an unprecedented flurry of executions in a state that led the nation the year before.
A Troubled Youth at the Fault Lines of Systemic Failure
Billy’s life began on unstable ground. Born in October 1972, he was raised in extreme poverty and neglect by a teenage mother. His father abandoned them when Billy was two-years-old. School records and psychological evaluations from his trial indicate that he suffered severe emotional disturbance, intellectual limitations, and developmental trauma.
Teachers described Billy as frequently hungry, poorly clothed, dirty, and uncared for — symptoms of chronic neglect. He repeatedly struggled in school, performed many grade levels below peers, and eventually dropped out after the eighth grade. Experts at trial testified that he functioned academically at a third-grade level. Neuropsychological evaluations identified organic brain dysfunction and indicators consistent with Fetal Alcohol Effect.
From a young age, Kearse’s encounters with law enforcement were less about serious wrongdoing and more about unmet needs and instability: petty theft, truancy, and being “beyond control” — typical markers of a child failed by social supports and educational systems. Yet by the time he was a teenager, these early risk factors had become a lifelong pattern of crisis and sanctions. His childhood, far from a momentary backdrop, was a foundational force in the cascade of harms that followed.
January 18, 1991
On January 18, 1991, an 18-year-old Billy was driving the wrong way on a one-way street in Fort Pierce, Florida, when Police Sergeant Danny Parrish stopped him. Sergeant Parrish asked Billy for identification. Billy could not produce a valid license and initially gave false names. What might have remained a routine traffic stop quickly escalated.
According to court records, a physical struggle and exchange of words ensued when Sergeant Parrish attempted to handcuff Billy, hitting Kearse in the eye. In that struggle, Billy grabbed Sergeant Parrish’s service weapon and fired multiple rounds. He later died from his injuries.
The gravity of this incident — the loss of a life, and especially the life of someone serving the community — can never be diminished. Sergeant Parrish’s family, the Fort Pierce police department, and the broader community have lived with the grief and trauma of that day for more than three decades.
The Death Sentence That Never Should Have Been
Billy was tried and convicted of first-degree murder in 1991 and, on November 8 of that year, sentenced to death by an 11–1 jury recommendation. However, procedural errors in the original sentencing — specifically improper jury instructions about aggravating factors — led the Florida Supreme Court to vacate that sentence and order a new penalty phase.
In 1997, a new sentencing proceeding resulted in a unanimous recommendation for death. Billy has remained on death row since then, with decades of appeals and post-conviction litigation. Yet, more than 30 years after the crime, and with every procedural avenue exhausted or denied, the state moves toward carrying out his execution.
Recently filed court records reveal that Billy’s resentencing proceeding was unfair. A juror who sat on that panel publicly described the courtroom during his trial as “filled” every day with uniformed law enforcement officers from across the state. She publicly wrote that she would “never forget” the visible show of support for the slain officer and remembered hoping that the officer’s family knew how much he was loved.
This visible and coordinated presence of uniformed officers was a powerful message sent directly to the jury in a case where a young Black man stood accused of killing a white police offier. The juror’s own words from just this month confirm that this atmosphere left a lasting impression on her.
More troubling, this same juror acknowledged during jury selection that she had prior media knowledge of the case and recently discussed with her family members that a retired Fort Pierce police officer related to her would be testifying in the trial. Despite numerous defense objections and requests to remove this juror for cause, according to the law, she was allowed to sit on the jury that ultimately upheld Billy’s sentence.
Persistent Questions and Calls for Mercy
In 2022, a federal 11th Circuit judge, dissenting from Billy’s death sentence, wrote that the three Florida Supreme Court Justices, Justice Anstead, Justice Pariente, and Justice Shaw, who opposed the death sentence “said it best” when they wrote that “The bottom line is that this is clearly not a death case.” Justice Anstead and Justice Pariente reiterated this conclusion in letters to the Florida Board of Executive Clemency in 2025 urging mercy for Billy.
In recent months, human rights organizations have called for Governor DeSantis to halt the execution and commute Billy’s sentence. Advocacy groups argue that new evaluations show Billy may have intellectual disabilities that, under evolving constitutional standards, should make execution impermissible. Experts have concluded that his intellectual functioning and adaptive capabilities were substantially impaired — factors long raised in mitigation but never treated as disqualifying.
This case sits at the intersection of youth, trauma, and systemic gaps: a young man with a deeply disrupted early life, limited cognitive capacity, and no rehabilitative support beyond punitive sanctions. The severity of his crime, killing a law enforcement officer, understandably evokes profound sorrow and anger. Yet, the very system that brought Billy to this moment failed to protect or nurture him when he was most vulnerable. We also must acknowledge the broader reality that young Black men are disproportionately stopped, searched, arrested, and subjected to force in police encounters across the United States.
Why This Matters
More than thirty years later, Billy is not the 18-year-old who stood in that courtroom. In prison, he has become a self-taught artist, creating intricate paintings with limited materials and sending them to friends and family. He has built relationships grounded in honesty and faith. He speaks openly of remorse. He has grown older inside a cell the size of a bathroom, reflecting on the harm that occurred and the life he wishes he had understood sooner.
The push for clemency in Billy Leon Kearse’s case is not an argument that the crime was not grievous. It is an appeal to the principles that undergird justice: proportionality, recognition of human complexity, and the possibility that punishment should be tempered by mercy where appropriate. A state that leads the nation in executions should also be a state that reflects on how and why individuals arrive at death row — and on society’s responsibility for the conditions that shape tragic lives like that of Billy Kearse.