William Reaves, Vietnam Veteran Whose Jury Did Not Learn Critical Mitigation Evidence about His Service-Related Injury, is Set for Execution in Florida

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has scheduled the execution of William Reaves, a 77-year-old Vietnam veteran, for October 20. Mr. Reaves was sentenced to death for the 1986 shooting death of Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Raczkoski. In a recent op-ed in Slate, Chance Meyer, one of Mr. Reaves’ former attorneys, writes that the jury that recommended his death sentence never heard expert testimony about the role Mr. Reaves’ combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder played in the commission of his crime Mr. Meyer notes specifically:

“As one of William’s lawyers, I sat with mental health experts who evaluated him, and from them I came to understand what really happened on the night of the crime. William, they explained, was in the grip of a flashback. He felt himself again in a firefight in Vietnam and could not — not did not, but could not — govern his impulses (emphasis original). William’s flashbacks were triggered by men in uniform and the sight of guns.… He acted reflexively. Even though Raczkoski only wanted to help him, William thought he was fighting for his life.”

A federal district court ultimately agreed that this evidence was critical to the sentencing determination and ordered new sentencing hearing. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit reversed, citing a procedural rule that barred the lower court from considering evidence not presented in state court.

Mr. Reaves would be at least the 235^th military veteran executed in the modern era and the 14^th veteran executed by order of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

The Death Penalty Information Center’s 2025 report, Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty, previously examined Mr. Reaves’ case in detail. DPI is republishing that account below.

The “Simply Disgraceful” Trial of Vietnam Veteran William Reaves

In 1969, twenty-year-old William Reaves arrived in Vietnam as a member of “Charlie Platoon” in the Army’s Fourth Infantry Division. “Quiet, nice, and got along with everyone,” was how fellow soldier Hector Caban described him when they first met. Mr. Reaves and his squad were assigned “search and destroy” missions, tasked with finding enemy combatants and snipers hiding in the jungle; often they would only learn a sniper was present when the “person in front of them got shot.” Once, his squad was “ambushed from three directions” in an open field, killing half the American soldiers. During another patrol, “a soldier Mr. Reaves was close to was shot in the back with the bullet ripping through the stomach.” As his friend Mr. Caban later testified, “We knew the guy was going to die because no matter how we wrapped him all his insides were coming out.” Disobeying a direct order, “Mr. Reaves jumped onto the helicopter and held the wounded soldier” as he died.

These experiences deeply traumatized Mr. Reaves, and by the end of his tour, he was using heroin. After he returned home, his friends and family noticed that the “happy and likeable,” “very respectable” young man — the “model student” his childhood pastor thought might someday become a minister — was gone. Mr. Reaves “was anxious, tense, and hated people creeping up on him,” and his drug addiction worsened. He was “unable to participate in family dinners…and could not be approached without giving him warning.” In 1986, Mr. Reaves shot and killed a police officer while high on cocaine. He was convicted and sentenced to death in Florida by a jury vote of 10 – 2, which would have resulted in a life sentence in nearly every other state today.

In 2015, Judge Donald Middlebrooks vacated Mr. Reaves’ death sentence, finding that Mr. Reaves’ trial attorney had been constitutionally ineffective because he failed to have his client’s mental health properly evaluated and therefore did not discover or present his PTSD diagnosis.

The attorney, who had never before tried a capital case, admitted he was “overwhelmed” and requested co-counsel, which the prosecution opposed, and the judge refused to appoint. Among the attorney’s failures was not sharing critical records with the expert he had retained. Without the records, which would have satisfied the criteria for PTSD, the expert testified that Mr. Reaves had “Vietnam Syndrome,” an unofficial disorder that did not meaningfully explain the damage Mr. Reaves had suffered. Under Florida law, the prosecution also successfully barred evidence of PTSD or “Vietnam Syndrome” from the jury as it deliberated his guilt.

When the defense introduced the “Vietnam Syndrome” diagnosis at the sentencing phase, the state told the jury that the defense expert had “invent[ed]” the condition. Later, after Mr. Reaves was already on death row, his post-conviction counsel obtained a determination from the VA that he was “100% disabled due to PTSD related to his military service.” His jury never heard this information.

Judge Middlebrooks also found that Mr. Reaves’ attorney was ineffective for failing to object to “outrageous testimony” presented by the prosecution about Mr. Reaves’ military record. The state called a former FBI agent who had never served in Vietnam, and who testified that Mr. Reaves’ numerous service medals were “automatically” given to soldiers. He testified further that Mr. Reaves “would not have received an honorable discharge except for the winding down of the Vietnam [W]ar.” Judge Middlebrooks found this testimony “utterly intolerable” and “simply disgraceful.” “I am amazed that this happened in an American courtroom,” the judge wrote. “If support for our troops is anything more than an empty slogan on a license plate, this should not be allowed to stand.”

The prosecution also presented a Vietnam platoon leader who “testified that none of the men in his company suffered from PTSD and that he was unaware of anyone in his years of military experience suffering from PTSD.” Judge Middlebrooks noted that Mr. Reaves’ inexperienced attorney did not object despite these claims being “almost certainly untrue.” The state “belittled Mr. Reaves’ service to his country” with virtually no opposition. Indeed, while Mr. Reaves’ attorney attempted to persuade the jury that his client’s military service should be considered as a mitigating factor, he clumsily argued in closing that Vietnam took “[s]ome essence, some part of his soul…[w]hatever it is that makes people good people.”

“An American soldier facing death at the hands of his government deserves effective representation,” Judge Middlebrooks concluded. “Mr. Reaves did not receive it.” But in 2017, the Eleventh Circuit reversed Judge Middlebrooks’ decision and reinstated Mr. Reaves’ death sentence. Mr. Reaves remains on death row today in Florida.