Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has made a bizarre social media flex about his state’s readiness to kill citizens on death row.
DeSantis spent Tuesday evening on his X account, posting about “the Marxist agenda” of Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani and calling Wikipedia a biased “dumpster fire.”
The governor then replied to an X post from a Florida Republican who asked him to “clear out death row,” claiming that the state was “barely” executing anyone.
DeSantis quickly snapped back by sharing a news article from Oct. 13 about the state executing a “record” 13 people so far in 2025—more than anywhere else in the U.S.
Previously, the most people executed in Florida in a single year was eight in 2014. Only one person was executed last year.
Since the article DeSantis shared was published, another death row inmate has been killed. A man convicted of raping and killing his neighbor will bring the tally to 15 when he receives a lethal injection next week.
Florida allows inmates to choose whether they will be executed by electrocution or lethal injection.
DeSantis, who became governor in 2019, came under fire in August for the number of service members and veterans being executed in Florida.
The governor, who served in the U.S Navy, once called Florida “the most veteran-friendly state.” During his reign, five veterans have been executed, leading other veterans to plead with DeSantis to halt the deaths of fellow former service members.
DeSantis’ Communications Director Alex Lanfranconi told the Daily Beast in August, “A simple trick to avoid execution in Florida is to not murder people.”
The Death Penalty Information Center says there are currently 273 people on death row in Florida, which includes one woman. While Florida residents make up just under six percent of the U.S. population, the state is home to 14 percent of the nation’s death row inmates.
Since 1924, 315 people have been executed in Florida, including two women. Florida was the first state to bring back death sentences after the Supreme Court axed them in 1972; executions resumed in Florida in 1979.
In 2023, DeSantis changed the law so that juries no longer needed to vote unanimously in capital felony cases in order for a judge to impose a death sentence. Now, only an eight-juror majority is needed, making Florida the state with the lowest threshold for imposing the death penalty.
That same year DeSantis also allowed the death penalty to be sought in sexual battery cases against a minor under the age of 12.
In May, DeSantis signed HB 903, a new bill that Floridians for Alternatives to Death Penalty described as opening “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.”
A Gallop poll conducted last year found only 53 percent of people were in favor of the death penalty for someone convicted of murder.
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