Florida executed 58-year-old Frank Walls by lethal injection Thursday night, breaking a record: it was the state’s 19th execution of 2025, the highest number carried out by a single state in more than 15 years.
Walls was pronounced dead after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final appeals. He was condemned for the 1987 murders of Edward Alger and Ann Petersen in Okaloosa County, a crime he committed at age 19. Authorities noted that Walls later confessed to three additional killings.
The execution cements Florida’s position as the primary driver of capital punishment in the United States this year. Walls’ death brought the nationwide total to 47 executions in 2025—nearly double the previous year’s figure.
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According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Florida alone accounted for 40% of all executions in the country this year. Texas is the only other state to have executed more than 18 people in a single year during the modern era, a threshold last crossed in 2009.
Final Legal Battles and Process Concerns
Walls’ legal team fought until the final hours to halt the procedure. In filings to the Supreme Court, they argued that Walls’ intellectual disability rendered him ineligible for the death penalty. They also raised alarms regarding the state’s lethal injection protocols.
Defense attorneys cited Florida Department of Corrections execution logs, which they claimed revealed a “wide range of errors” in previous procedures.
The logs showed “habitual inaccuracies in documenting when drugs are removed from storage… the removal and/or preparation of the wrong quantity of certain drugs… [and] documented improvisation and usage of drugs not itemized in the protocol,” Walls’ lawyers wrote. They also alleged the state had used “expired etomidate during past executions.”
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The defense further pointed to autopsy reports suggesting the lethal injection process can cause lungs to fill with fluid, potentially creating a sensation of drowning or suffocation.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied the request for a stay, maintaining a consistent pattern; the high court has denied every request to stay an execution filed this year.
The surge in executions aligns with Governor Ron DeSantis’s recent policy initiatives regarding capital punishment. The Governor has advocated for increasing the pace of executions and has signed legislation making it easier to impose death sentences.
Under DeSantis’s direction, Florida lawmakers have expanded capital offenses to include child rape and human trafficking.
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