On Thursday. May 22, Governor DeSantis signed HB 903, a bill that recklessly expands Florida’s execution methods without providing clear guardrails, oversight, or transparency. It opens the door for the state to experiment with virtually any method not yet deemed unconstitutional—including beheading, electrocution, hanging, nitrogen hypoxia, firing squads, and other untested or future methods.
Read the eyewitness accounts of two recent firing squad executions (Brad Sigmon and Mikal Mahdi) in South Carolina. Their stories expose the visceral, brutal, and inhumane reality that this bill could bring to Florida.
Maria DeLiberato, a former prosecutor, capital defense attorney, and Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, cautioned lawmakers: “In Florida, we have a long history of botched executions, including several electrocutions in which we quite literally set the prisoner’s head on fire.” (Pedro Medina and Jesse Tafero)
She added: “The broad and vague language of this statute is reckless. It invites costly litigation, drains public resources, and imposes additional burdens on Florida’s already strained justice system. Florida already has the broadest death penalty scheme in the nation—with the lowest threshold for imposing a death sentence and the most qualifying capital crimes. This law pushes us even further into dangerous and uncharted territory.”