STARKE, Fla. — Tonight, We, the People of the State of Florida, executed Billy Leon Kearse, an intellectually disabled Black man who was just 18 years and 84 days old at the time he made the single worst decision of his life. The murder of Sgt. Danny Parrish was a tragedy, and the loss experienced by his family, friends, and community cannot be understated. Nothing written here diminishes that harm.
The story of the catastrophic, impulsive, and tragic action Billy took as a child (because yes, an 18-year-old is still a child: in the eyes of parents, in many cases under the law, and in undisputed neuroscience) has been told time and time again in courtrooms, legal briefs, and media reports. His death sentence was upheld on appeal by the narrowest of margins, with three of the seven justices finding death was not the appropriate sentence because “the killing resulted from the impulsive act of an eighteen-year-old who functions on a low average-borderline intelligence level and…there is no evidence that Kearse set out that night intending to commit any crime, let alone murder.” But the story of Billy’s life did not begin on the day of the crime.
Billy was born into conditions of severe poverty, instability, abuse, and trauma. His mother was a young teenager who consumed alcohol throughout her pregnancy. His father abandoned them when Billy was just two years old. He grew up in circumstances no child should have to endure. In homes marked by violence and neglect, in schools unequipped to support a child with intellectual disabilities, in systems that punished him more often than they protected him. At times, Billy was forced to walk naked outside as punishment. He was tied to a bed, beaten, and sexually abused on multiple occasions. His teachers described a child who came to school dirty and hungry, who lacked positive adult role models, and who, on more than one occasion, asked local police officers to arrest him so that he could have food and somewhere safe to lay his head that night, even if that “somewhere” was a jail cell.
And then, Billy turned eight.
By that age, he had already experienced profound harm — the kind of harm that alters the trajectory of a developing brain and shapes a child’s ability to regulate emotion, assess risk, and foresee consequences. The warning signs and opportunities for intervention were there, but the support was not.
Just ten years later, Billy, a young Black teen driving to pick up a pizza, was pulled over for a traffic stop. His car was smoking, and he went the wrong way down a one-way street. What happened in the next few moments between him and Sgt. Parrish, who records indisputably show had accumulated more than a dozen complaints for misconduct in his short three-year career, has been the subject of much debate. What is clear is that, after an argument and a struggle, Billy reacted in a devastating and irrevocable way. Immediately after the killing, the scared teen expressed deep regret and remorse for his impulsive actions. He has carried the weight of the harm he caused for nearly four decades.
In prison, Billy’s brain development caught up with his birthdays. He grew into a man. He became an artist. He painted scenes filled with color, often based just on verbal descriptions. His art show, a personal goal he has pursued with the support of his many pen pals from around the world, is scheduled to open this Friday, just three days after his state-sanctioned killing. His work, created in a concrete cell, reflects introspection, grief, hope, and humanity. Tonight, the State extinguished the life of the artist who made it.
Billy spent nearly four decades on death row waiting, litigating, and aging. In the final weeks of his life, even those fighting to save him carried profound personal loss. His longtime attorney was grieving the death of his own father while continuing to stand beside Billy, filing motions, answering late-night calls, and bearing witness to the impending loss of someone he had grown to care deeply for. The human cost of execution does not stop with the person strapped to the gurney; it radiates outward — to families, to loved ones, to the lawyers and advocates who carry these cases with them every day.
Florida continues to lead the nation in both death row exonerations and in executions. Pause and consider that. We continue to carry out irreversible punishment in a system that has repeatedly proven itself fallible.
There was another path available. It would have held Billy accountable while recognizing his youth, his intellectual disability, and his profound capacity for growth. It would have given Sgt. Parrish’s family closure in 1991, and spared them decades of appeals and heartache. That path was a life sentence then. That path was clemency now. Neither path was chosen.
Tonight, we acknowledge Sgt. Danny Parrish and all who loved him. We also acknowledge Billy Leon Kearse — the child who was failed, the adult who expressed remorse, the artist whose brushes will sit still, and the man who, with just hours left to live, beseeched his friends and family to remember that “love, not anger” was the best path forward in his absence, even and especially towards those who wished for and may celebrate his death.
We reject the notion that more death heals the wounds of violence. We recommit ourselves to a Florida that chooses accountability without execution, safety without vengeance, and justice rooted in dignity for all people.
May we have the courage to build something better.