Florida Death Row Prisoners Challenge Governor DeSantis’ Secretive Execution Decisions

Over the past two weeks, two Florida death row pris­on­ers filed fresh chal­lenges to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ deci­sions to sign his tenth and eleventh death war­rants of 2025. On July 29, 2025, Kayle Barrington Bates (also known as Maud Dib Al Sharif) brought a civ­il suit against Gov. DeSantis alleg­ing Florida’s exe­cu­tion war­rant process ​“is infect­ed with racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al arbi­trari­ness.” Included in the claim is a sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis show­ing that ​“95% of the exe­cu­tions that Governor DeSantis has autho­rized involved white victims.” 

On the after­noon of the same day Mr. Bates’ law­suit was filed, Gov. DeSantis issued a war­rant for the exe­cu­tion of Curtis Windom, who was con­vict­ed of the killing of Johnnie Lee, Valerie Davis, and Mary Lubin, all of whom were Black. On August 3, 2025, attor­neys for Mr. Windom filed a motion argu­ing that ​“the post­con­vic­tion defense bar [is] over­whelmed by an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of death war­rants being signed [this] year…every two weeks,” and that ​“the time in which post­con­vic­tion coun­sel can even respond has been reduced by 33%.” 

Florida’s process for deter­min­ing exe­cu­tions and clemen­cy oper­ates in com­plete secre­cy. Under Gov. DeSantis, Florida has already car­ried out more exe­cu­tions than any oth­er state this year, and has sched­uled the exe­cu­tions of Mr. Bates for August 19, 2025, and Mr. Windom for August 28, 2025. There are many ques­tions sur­round­ing the governor’s secre­tive deci­sion-mak­ing process — he alone decides who will be exe­cut­ed, and when, and refus­es to pro­vide the pub­lic with an expla­na­tion for this decision. 

On July 29, 2025, Mr. Bates’ attor­neys filed a civ­il law­suit against Gov. DeSantis under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleg­ing racial bias in Florida’s exe­cu­tions war­rant process. Mr. Bates, who is Black, was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death in 1983 by an all-white jury. His con­vic­tion rest­ed on a con­fes­sion made under the pres­sure of a five-hour inter­ro­ga­tion by police and with­out the pres­ence of legal coun­sel. He was resen­tenced to death in 1995 in a non-unan­i­mous 9 – 3 jury vote. Florida and Alabama are the only two states that autho­rize juries to rec­om­mend death sen­tences with a non-unan­i­mous vote. The U.S. Supreme Court has nev­er direct­ly ruled on whether jury una­nim­i­ty is required in death sentencing. 

Mr. Bates’ com­plaint seeks declara­to­ry and injunc­tive relief, includ­ing a stay of exe­cu­tion. It presents sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence of racial dis­par­i­ties in Florida’s use of the death penal­ty, not­ing ​“under Governor DeSantis’ administration…a defen­dant who is con­vict­ed of killing a white vic­tim is over fif­teen times more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than a defen­dant whose vic­tims are not white.” It notes as well that “[n]early 88% of Florida’s mod­ern exe­cu­tions have been for cas­es with white vic­tims,” and argues that ​“Florida’s cur­rent pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of white lives can­not be viewed inde­pen­dent­ly of its deval­u­a­tion of Black lives.” 

On August 3, 2025, attor­neys for Mr. Windom filed his motion chal­leng­ing the sched­ul­ing order in his case on due process grounds and argu­ing that they had less than five days between July 29 when the war­rant was signed and August 3, the court-imposed dead­line for fil­ing any suc­ces­sive motions in the case. Because of an exe­cu­tion at the state facil­i­ty where Mr. Windom is being held on July 31 and the fact that the prison does not allow for legal vis­its or calls on Saturday or Sunday, his attor­neys had, accord­ing to the fil­ing, only one day, Friday, August 1, to ​“con­sult with or attempt to con­sult with Mr. Windom in a mean­ing­ful mat­ter.” The motion asserts that this time­frame ​“is com­plete­ly unrea­son­able when con­sid­er­ing the sim­ple fact that these pro­ceed­ings will be the last effort Mr. Windom has to attempt to right the wrongs of his trial.” 

On August 7, 2025, the Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial District denied Mr. Windom’s motion and his request for a stay of his exe­cu­tion date. Counsel for Mr. Windom filed a Notice of Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on August 8. The Notice of Appeal states that coun­sel for Mr. Windom only became aware on August 5, 2025, two days after the court’s dead­line for fil­ings, that all three of the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies had writ­ten let­ters in sup­port of Mr. Windom and all three desired ​“his life be spared.” 

On August 12, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida dis­missed Mr. Bates civ­il suit, rea­son­ing that ​“there could be many rea­sons why the Governor might choose to sign a death war­rant for one defen­dant over anoth­er.” On the same day, Florida’s Supreme Court denied a sep­a­rate motion for post-con­vic­tion relief for Mr. Bates as well as his peti­tion for a writ of habeas cor­pus and stay of his execution.