Florida carried out its 18th execution of the year Tuesday under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ aggressive reign of the death penalty during his final term.
William Reaves, 77, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. from a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1986 shooting death of Indian River County Deputy Richard Raczkowski.
The death chamber curtain rose quickly at execution time at 6 p.m., and Reaves was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm. When asked if he had a final statement, he replied: “No, I don’t. »
The injection started immediately afterwards. About 30 seconds later, Reaves took several deep breaths then stopped moving. After a few minutes, the team manager shook Reaves’ shoulders and shouted his name, but there was no response.
A doctor was called to the room shortly afterward to check for a heartbeat or other signs of life, and Reaves was pronounced dead about a minute later.
Reaves was the eighth Florida prisoner over the age of 70 put to death this year, highlighting the nation’s aging death row population as Florida continues to far outpace the rest of the country in total executions.
Last year, Florida set a state record with 19 executions in a single year and it would tie that number if another execution takes place next month as scheduled.
DeSantis, who leaves office in January after two terms, said his goal was to bring justice to victims’ families who waited decades for death sentences to be carried out.
Raczkowski responded to a 911 call at a Vero Beach convenience store in September 1986, according to court records. Reaves later admitted he made the call from a pay phone outside the store.
While Raczkowski and Reaves were talking, a gun fell out of Reaves’ shorts, officials said. The two fought over the gun and Reaves eventually regained control of it. Investigators said the deputy was trying to run away when Reaves shot him four times. The deputy later died from his injuries.
Reaves was convicted and sentenced to death about a year after the shooting. But the Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction due to a conflict of interest with the prosecutor and ordered a new trial. Reaves was convicted again and sentenced to death in 1992, and subsequent appeals were unsuccessful.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Reaves’ latest appeal Tuesday afternoon, without comment.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court also rejected Reaves’ appeals to spare his life.
One of the questions raised by his lawyers concerned the method of execution used in Florida. All executions in Florida are carried out by lethal injection of a sedative, paralytic and heart-stopping drug, according to the Department of Corrections.
The court has already upheld this lethal injection protocol in the face of similar challenges. That differs from the single-drug injection used by states like Tennessee, where death row inmate Christa Pike was rushed to the hospital last month after surviving two fatal doses of pentobarbital.
Defense attorneys also argued that jurors who recommended the death penalty for Reaves were never informed that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs had classified Reaves — an Army veteran — as 100 percent disabled due to post-traumatic stress disorder, caused by his service in the Vietnam War. More than 100 veterans sent DeSantis a letter Monday urging him to stop the execution.
A total of 47 people have been executed in the United States in 2025. In addition to leading all other states last year, Florida has carried out more than half of the 32 total executions in the United States so far this year. In July, Florida executed two prisoners in a single day, the first state to do so in nearly a decade.
Jesse Guardado, 64, is expected to die by injection in Florida on November 5. He was convicted of robbing and killing a woman to buy drugs in 2004.
Gn headline
