TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today at 6 p.m. ET, the State of Florida is scheduled to execute Mark Geralds for the 1989 murder of Tressa Pettibone. If carried out, Geralds’ execution will continue a year in which Florida has executed more people than in any other year in state history, raising deep concerns about the fairness, transparency, and speed of the state’s death-penalty machinery.
This morning, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) and Death Penalty Action (DPA) will deliver thousands of petition signatures to the Governor’s Office. The petitions call for an immediate halt to this execution and urge officials to confront the systemic failures that have driven Florida’s unprecedented execution spree.
Unless a stay is granted, FADP and advocates from across the state will gather at 5 p.m. this evening outside Florida State Prison for a vigil and peaceful protest ahead of the scheduled execution. They will be joined by representatives of DPA, and Journey of Hope… From Violence to Healing, including internationally known speaker and murder victims’ family member SueZann Bosler. SueZann’s father was murdered in Florida in 1986. In the years since, she has become a leading voice for compassion and healing, even successfully advocating that the man responsible be spared execution and sentenced to life in prison instead.
Please gather in the designated area across the highway from the death chamber at Florida State Prison, 23916 NW 83rd Ave., Raiford, FL 32026. All are welcome to join in solidarity.
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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.