For Immediate Release: Friday, August 14, 2026 

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Florida Set to Execute William Silvia Tuesday As State Continues Record-Breaking Execution Pace

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The State of Florida plans to execute 61-year-old William Frances Silvia on Tuesday, August 18, at 6 p.m. ET for the 2006 murder of his estranged wife, Patricia Silvia, in Seminole County. Mr. Silvia was sentenced to death following an 11-1 jury recommendation. If carried out, Mr. Silvia’s execution will be Florida’s 13th execution this year, continuing an unprecedented acceleration under Governor Ron DeSantis. It will also be the 41st execution carried out during the DeSantis administration.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) is calling for the execution to be stayed and for Mr. Silvia’s sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the only alternative sentence for first degree murder in Florida. If the execution proceeds on August 18, FADP staff, members, and supporters from across the state will gather for a peaceful vigil beginning at 5 p.m. ET outside the execution chamber at Florida State Prison (23916 NW 83rd Ave., Raiford). Additional vigils will take place throughout the state in Pinellas County, the metropolitan Jacksonville area, North Port, Tallahassee, and others.

Silvia’s Mental Health History and Past Waiver of Legal Review
William Silvia has a documented history of delusional thinking, paranoia, childhood trauma, alcohol dependence and multiple head injuries. In the months before the murder of his estranged wife, Patricia Silvia, he lost his job, became homeless and experienced severe psychological deterioration. Silvia grew up surrounded by domestic violence and physical and emotional abuse. He also suffered several significant head injuries, including a motor vehicle crash that caused him to lose consciousness and an assault that left him with facial and orbital fractures requiring surgery. His serious mental illness was not in dispute at trial. Both state and defense experts agreed that his longstanding paranoid thinking and chronic psychological disorder was genuinely mitigating. 

That history is particularly relevant to Silvia’s unusual legal path. In 2012, he was allowed to waive his initial state postconviction proceedings and abandon his right to challenge his death sentence. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida’s capital sentencing system in Hurst v. Florida, a trial court granted Silvia a new penalty phase. The Florida Supreme Court later reversed, ruling that his earlier waiver prevented him from benefiting from the subsequent change in constitutional law – a change which would have afforded him a chance for a life sentence

Research by Cornell Law School Professor John Blume found that, among 106 people who waived legal review and allowed their executions to proceed, at least 93, or 88 percent, had documented mental illness or severe substance use disorders. At least 30 had previously attempted suicide.

“Serious mental illness shaped William Silvia’s life, the crime and the legal decisions that followed,” said Maria DeLiberato, Legal and Policy Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “When the consequence is execution, a decision made in the throes of his mental illness should not permanently close the courthouse door to a constitutional protection recognized years later.” 

One Team of Lawyers Under Overlapping Death Warrants
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Silvia’s death warrant on July 17 while his attorneys were preparing for the execution of another of their clients, Dominick Occhicone. Silvia’s attorneys learned of the warrant while traveling to Florida State Prison to meet with Occhicone, who was scheduled to be executed just 11 days later. The warrant required the team to begin investigating and litigating Silvia’s case while simultaneously representing another person in the final days before his execution.

Less than 48 hours after Florida executed Occhicone on July 28, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a third warrant for Harold Lucas, who is represented by the same team of lawyers as Occhicone and Silvia. The three consecutive warrants created overlapping deadlines for executions scheduled within a span of just 34 days. Because the governor alone decides when to sign death warrants and whom to select, no court order, statutory deadline or other procedural requirement dictated this timing.

Death-warrant litigation requires attorneys to review decades of records, investigate newly available claims, locate witnesses and experts, prepare emergency filings and appear in state and federal courts. Attorneys must perform that work while advising clients and their families through the final days before a scheduled execution.

“This is not a matter of attorneys simply having a heavy workload,” DeLiberato said. “The State has placed the same defense team under overlapping deadlines in three cases where every minute matters and every decision is irreversible. Florida cannot manufacture an emergency and then pretend that equates to meaningful legal review.”

Legal Sources
Circuit Court (Seminole County): 2006CF004522A
Florida Supreme Court: SC2026-1162
U.S. Supreme Court: Pending