Statement on the Execution of William Reaves

STARKE, Fla. – Tonight, We the People of the State of Florida executed Vietnam veteran William Reaves, Jr. for the 1986 murder of Corporal Richard Raczkoski. William was the 18th person executed in Florida this year, the 46th person executed since Gov. Ron DeSantis took office, and the 14th veteran executed during his tenure.

Supporters of the death penalty want us to live in a world of black and white, where good and evil are easily distinguished and a person’s worst act tells us everything we need to know about his life. The tragic loss of a police officer in the line of duty underscores that divisive narrative even further.

Much has been written about what unfolded in that Zippy Mart parking lot nearly four decades ago, when William took the life of a man who was trying to help him. Corporal Raczkoski’s family and friends have expressed their understandable deep and lasting grief, and their hope that this execution brings some finality. Even as we disagree with the punishment, we hope they feel some measure of relief.

On the other side, William’s family, his lawyers, and loved ones have been tirelessly trying to remind the public that there are indeed two truths at play here. One of his former attorneys, now a law professor, invites us to confront this false binary narrative: 

There are two stories of William’s life. In the prevailing narrative, he’s a monster who shot a good cop as the man begged for his life. In the untold story, he’s a victim of circumstance—a sweet kid from a small town who was sent to war, trained to kill in the service of his country, and returned home a psychological ruin. Both stories are true. Only the first has been given moral weight in popular memory. The second—the tale of William the war hero—explains his crime.  

William, the war hero, is all too familiar with staring death in the face. Before he was prisoner #040002, he was Private Reaves, a young man who chose to go to Vietnam even after being offered an easier posting in Panama. Within a week of his arrival, a friend died in his arms, beginning a legacy of trauma that he was already using heroin to cope with before he even returned home. He served admirably and came back with two medals, an honorable discharge, and wounds that would shape the rest of his life.

William struggled to come to terms with what he had seen, done, and lost in that jungle. He went to the VA after returning stateside, and received a 100% disability rating for his combat-related post traumatic stress disorder. Like so many veterans, he was left to find his own way through civilian life while contending with combat-related PTSD he was ill-equipped to understand or overcome. The country that had trained him for war had not prepared him to live with its aftermath.

William was under the influence of drugs that night in 1986 when his combat trauma overtook him, and he believed he was back in Vietnam. Fearing for his life, he responded to Corporal Raczkoski as though he were an enemy combatant, then fled in a zigzag pattern, believing more enemies surrounded him. The war had followed William home, with devastating consequences for an officer who had no reason to expect that any harm would come to him.

After William confessed two days later, the country for which he had sacrificed so much began the process of seeking his death. The state minimized his service and suffering, belittled his combat experience, and called a witness who changed his story to keep the jury from hearing the full account of how his time in Vietnam affected his actions that night. 

In 2015, a federal district court judge gave William a glimmer of hope. The judge concluded that his inexperienced counsel had provided constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to present the full picture of his Vietnam service and its direct impact on his actions. The court also faulted the prosecutor’s improper denigration of William’s combat experience and ordered a new trial where a jury could hear the full picture and decide whether William should live or die.

But the state fought to preserve the death sentence. It appealed, and a higher court relied on procedural rules to extinguish that glimmer of hope. Having failed William when he returned from war, the state fought to keep that failure from receiving its full weight in the courtroom.

William never denied his involvement or made light of his crime. He expressed immense remorse and apologized in court. He spoke highly of Corporal Raczkoski, saying that he had “never met a finer officer in [my] life.” His requests for mercy, and those made on his behalf, asked the state to consider his responsibility alongside the service, trauma, and abandonment that preceded that night.

As a veteran himself, Governor DeSantis should understand that our obligations to those who serve do not end when they take off the uniform. He had the power to consider what the jury could not and to spare William’s life while holding him accountable for Corporal Raczkoski’s death. Instead, a governor who invokes the honor of military service used his pen to execute another man who carried the marks of that service.

We must resist this either-or narrative. Both men swore an oath to protect and defend. Corporal Raczkoski deserved to go home to his family after his shift ended that night. William Reaves deserved treatment, compassion, and understanding for his war wounds. Both things are true.

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