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Jul 9

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Jul 9

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Leads 24 Groups, Individuals in Filing Amicus Brief on Behalf of Death Row Prisoner William “Tommy” Zeigler fadp.org/floridians-for…

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Apr 22

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Apr 21

Statement on the Execution of Chadwick "Khalil" Willacy

STARKE, Fla. — Tonight, We the People of the State of Florida executed Chadwick “Khalil” Willacy for the 1990 murder of Marlys Sather.

We grieve for Marlys Sather, for her family, and for all who have carried the weight of this loss for more than three decades. Nothing about this execution can undo that harm. Instead, the State of Florida has chosen to add another act of violence — deliberate, calculated, and carried out in our name.

Khalil spent more than 30 years on death row trying to demonstrate that he was more than the impulsive and devastating actions he took just weeks shy of his 23rd birthday — when he was a young man in the grip of a severe and escalating substance use disorder.

Khalil’s state-sanctioned murder is also inseparable from a deeper and more disturbing truth: This execution is the latest in a steady stream of Florida’s attempts to silence the truth about the safety and efficacy of its execution protocol.

On March 6 of this year, Khalil requested public records about Florida’s lethal injection protocol, questioning how it has been administered during this unprecedented killing spree.

He knew he was at risk of getting an execution date. He knew about the troubling irregularities with the previous killings, including Billy Kearse, whose March 3 execution took twice as long as usual. He listened as the State claimed there was “no science” for how long it takes to kill.

He had watched neighbor after neighbor make the same post-warrant public records requests, only to be told they asked too late, mocked by the State as making desperate last ditch efforts to stop their executions. He watched as his neighbors were stifled by the courts for failing to sufficiently prove that their executions would be torturous, while the same courts denied them access to the very records that would support their claims.

Instead of responding to his public records request and allowing the matter to be resolved through the appropriate legal process, just a week later, the Governor answered with a death warrant, deciding Khalil would be next to die.

Florida’s unique execution selection process puts sole discretion in the hands of the Governor and affords him full and complete secrecy in the selection process. This authority has no checks and balances, no one to oversee the reasons behind the selection process. No one to ensure that as long as Florida continues to have a death penalty, it should at least be administered with transparency, reliability, and basic human decency.

Instead of shying away from the fight, Khalil continued to push for the truth. He and his attorneys fought in court, raising serious concerns about Florida’s lethal injection practices and the State’s continued refusal to comply with its own public records laws. Once again, the State twisted the facts and evidence, and the court continued to protect their secrecy.

It makes sense that Khali was the one who continued to fight because that’s who he was. In the days before his execution, Khalil testified on behalf of a friend facing resentencing — using his voice and his time to try to protect someone else from the same fate. Even as the State prepared to kill him, Khalil was trying to save someone else.

Tonight, we grieve for Marlys. We grieve for Khalil. We grieve for a state that continues to hide the truth from the very people it claims to serve.

Every Floridian should be asking themselves tonight: What is the State of Florida hiding in those records? Are they so incriminating that instead of transparency, our Governor used his unchecked power to sign a retaliatory death warrant just to silence one of the very people demanding the truth?

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Apr 2

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Apr 2

BREAKING: James Duckett will not be executed under the existing death warrant. fadp.org/james-ducketts…

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Apr 1

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Apr 1

RELEASE: Circuit Court Denies Duckett Access to DNA Data, Blocks Additional Analysis Despite Inconclusive Results from State Testing fadp.org/circuit-court-…

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Mar 3

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Mar 3

Statement on the Execution of Billy Kearse

STARKE, Fla. — Tonight, We, the People of the State of Florida, executed Billy Leon Kearse, an intellectually disabled Black man who was just 18 years and 84 days old at the time he made the single worst decision of his life. The murder as a tragedy, and the loss experienced by his family, friends, and community cannot be understated. Nothing written here diminishes that harm.

The story of the catastrophic, impulsive, and tragic action Billy took as a child (because yes, an 18-year-old is still a child: in the eyes of parents, in many cases under the law, and in undisputed neuroscience) has been told time and time again in courtrooms, legal briefs, and media reports. His death sentence was upheld on appeal by the narrowest of margins, with three of the seven justices finding death was not the appropriate sentence because “the killing resulted from the impulsive act of an eighteen-year-old who functions on a low average-borderline intelligence level and…there is no evidence that Kearse set out that night intending to commit any crime, let alone murder.” But the story of Billy’s life did not begin on the day of the crime.

Billy was born into conditions of severe poverty, instability, abuse, and trauma. His mother was a young teenager who consumed alcohol throughout her pregnancy. His father abandoned them when Billy was just two years old. He grew up in circumstances no child should have to endure. In homes marked by violence and neglect, in schools unequipped to support a child with intellectual disabilities, in systems that punished him more often than they protected him. At times, Billy was forced to walk naked outside as punishment. He was tied to a bed, beaten, and sexually abused on multiple occasions. His teachers described a child who came to school dirty and hungry, who lacked positive adult role models, and who, on more than one occasion, asked local police officers to arrest him so that he could have food and somewhere safe to lay his head that night, even if that “somewhere” was a jail cell.

And then, Billy turned eight.

By that age, he had already experienced profound harm — the kind of harm that alters the trajectory of a developing brain and shapes a child’s ability to regulate emotion, assess risk, and foresee consequences. The warning signs and opportunities for intervention were there, but the support was not.

Just ten years later, Billy, a young Black teen driving to pick up a pizza, was pulled over for a traffic stop. His car was smoking, and he went the wrong way down a one-way street. What happened in the next few moments between him and Sgt. Parrish, who records indisputably show had accumulated more than a dozen complaints for misconduct in his short three-year career, has been the subject of much debate. What is clear is that, after an argument and a struggle, Billy reacted in a devastating and irrevocable way. Immediately after the killing, the scared teen expressed deep regret and remorse for his impulsive actions. He has carried the weight of the harm he caused for nearly four decades.

In prison, Billy’s brain development caught up with his birthdays. He grew into a man. He became an artist. He painted scenes filled with color, often based just on verbal descriptions. His art show, a personal goal he has pursued with the support of his many pen pals from around the world, is scheduled to open this Friday, just three days after his state-sanctioned killing. His work, created in a concrete cell, reflects introspection, grief, hope, and humanity. Tonight, the State extinguished the life of the artist who made it.

Billy spent nearly four decades on death row waiting, litigating, and aging. In the final weeks of his life, even those fighting to save him carried profound personal loss. His longtime attorney was grieving the death of his own father while continuing to stand beside Billy, filing motions, answering late-night calls, and bearing witness to the impending loss of someone he had grown to care deeply for. The human cost of execution does not stop with the person strapped to the gurney; it radiates outward — to families, to loved ones, to the lawyers and advocates who carry these cases with them every day.

Florida continues to lead the nation in both death row exonerations and in executions. Pause and consider that. We continue to carry out irreversible punishment in a system that has repeatedly proven itself fallible.

There was another path available. It would have held Billy accountable while recognizing his youth, his intellectual disability, and his profound capacity for growth. It would have given Sgt. Parrish’s family closure in 1991, and spared them decades of appeals and heartache. That path was a life sentence then. That path was clemency now. Neither path was chosen.

Tonight, we acknowledge Sgt. Danny Parrish and all who loved him. We also acknowledge Billy Leon Kearse — the child who was failed, the adult who expressed remorse, the artist whose brushes will sit still, and the man who, with just hours left to live, beseeched his friends and family to remember that “love, not anger” was the best path forward in his absence, even and especially towards those who wished for and may celebrate his death.

We reject the notion that more death heals the wounds of violence. We recommit ourselves to a Florida that chooses accountability without execution, safety without vengeance, and justice rooted in dignity for all people.

May we have the courage to build something better. fadp.org/statement-on-t…