Florida makes no apologies for carrying out the death penalty for convicted killers.

The letter hates it, but many Americans support capital punishment as a justified punishment.

But Florida’s latest man on the gurney had been begging for it since 2008.

The Inmate Who Wrote Letters Asking for His Own Execution

James Robertson, 63, died at Florida State Prison near Starke in October 2026 after the state gave him its three-drug lethal injection. Officials pronounced him dead about 10 minutes after the drugs started.

Witnesses didn’t get a speech. They didn’t get an apology either.

When officials asked if he had any last words, Robertson brushed them off. “Nah, I’m straight,” he said.

That was it. Eighteen years of waiting, and that’s what he left behind.

And the waiting was entirely his idea. Robertson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for strangling his cellmate, Frank Hart, at Charlotte Correctional Institution north of Fort Myers in 2008. Prosecutors said he tied several socks together into a garrote and choked Hart while the man slept.

Robertson told investigators flat out why he did it. He wanted a death sentence. He had no interest in growing old in a cell, and he figured killing the man in the next bunk was the fastest way out.

So he waived every appeal. He never once fought the sentence. In 2023, he even wrote then-Attorney General Ashley Moody a letter asking why the state was dragging its feet on his execution.

Florida finally got around to answering him.

Eight Days From Freedom When It Happened

Frank Hart had eight days left. Eight more days, and he’d have walked out the gate.

His daughter, Rebecca Hart, stood outside the prison and made sure reporters understood her father was more than a supporting character in his killer’s story.

“When someone you love is taken from you in such a violent way, the world keeps moving, even when a part of yours feels like it has stopped,” she told reporters. “Other people go on with their lives, but you carry your loss into every tomorrow.”

Hart had his own record. A court convicted him of sexual battery, and he went to prison in 2003. Nobody’s pretending the man was a saint. But the state held him in its custody, and it owed him at least a night’s sleep without a homemade garrote around his neck.

Robertson’s rap sheet ran much longer. He went to prison at 17 back in 1980 for burglary and assault, then racked up convictions for escape, battery, and weapons offenses. By the time he killed Hart, he’d spent roughly 28 years behind bars, which is most of a lifetime.

Tennessee Handed Death Penalty Opponents a Gift

Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike on September 30. She received two doses of pentobarbital and lived. Prison staff rushed her to a hospital in critical condition, and she has since gone back to prison.

Tennessee Gov Bill Lee ordered an independent review. He also postponed the state’s other scheduled execution. As of Robertson’s execution, Tennessee still hadn’t publicly explained what went wrong.

Opponents of capital punishment couldn’t have scripted a better talking point if they’d tried.

But Florida didn’t blink. Jordan Kirkland, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Corrections, took the question head-on at a news conference before Robertson’s execution.

“Florida has a sound lethal injection process and protocol,” Kirkland said.

He wouldn’t comment on Tennessee’s protocol. He did promise Florida would keep its process “humane and dignified.” The state uses a sedative, then a paralytic, then a drug that stops the heart. The whole thing took about 10 minutes, which made Kirkland’s case better than any podium could.

Ron DeSantis Keeps Up a Pace No Other Governor Touches

Robertson marked Florida’s 17th execution of 2026. Florida alone has carried out more than half of the 31 executions nationwide so far this year.

And that’s on the heels of a record. Ron DeSantis oversaw 19 executions in 2025, more than any Florida governor in a single year since the death penalty came back in 1976. That one state accounted for roughly 40% of the national total, which hit 47 executions, the most since 2009.

In July, Florida executed two men in a single day. No state had done that in nearly a decade.

The anti-death penalty crowd likes to paint all of this as a governor running an assembly line. But that picture doesn’t hold up very well against what DeSantis did with William Lee Thompson.

Thompson, 74, sits on death row for his role in the 1976 kidnapping and killing of 23-year-old Sally Ivester. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and sexual battery. Robertson and Thompson originally shared the same execution date.

DeSantis pulled Thompson’s death warrant instead. It was the first time he’d ever done that. He gave no public reason, but he had already paused the execution in September for a psychiatric evaluation, and Thompson’s attorneys say he has dementia and failing health.

So the governor critics call a hanging judge hit the brakes when competency questions came up. Funny how that part rarely makes the fundraising emails.

Now think about Sally Ivester’s family for a second. Former Govs Bob Graham and Bob Martinez each scheduled Thompson’s execution in the 1980s, back when Florida still used the electric chair. Years of appeals and stays kept him alive anyway. Half a century later, the case still isn’t finished. If anything, Florida’s real problem was never speed.

What a Man Who Chose Death Says About Life Sentences

Robertson’s case should make the “just lock them up forever” crowd a little uncomfortable.

Here was a man who looked at life without parole and decided it was worse than dying. And he was willing to kill a stranger to get his preferred outcome. Without a death penalty on the books, what exactly would have stopped him from doing it again? Another life sentence stacked on top of the ones he already couldn’t finish?

That argument can run ahead of itself, sure. Most lifers never lay a hand on anybody. But corrections officers and inmates live alongside the ones who would, and a punishment with real teeth matters behind the walls as much as outside them.

Florida isn’t slowing down. The state has scheduled William Reaves, 77, for October 20 for fatally shooting a deputy in 1986. Jesse Guardado, 64, follows on November 5 for robbing and killing a woman in 2004 to buy drugs.

Expect activists to wave Christa Pike’s case around at every one of them. Expect demands for moratoriums, reviews, and pauses “until questions are answered.”

But Florida just answered the biggest one in about 10 minutes.

Rebecca Hart will carry her loss into every tomorrow, in her own words. At least the waiting part is finally over.

Sources: Fox News, “Florida executes inmate who killed cellmate because he wanted death penalty”; WWSB/MySuncoast, “Florida inmate scheduled for execution in 2008 cellmate killing” and “Florida execution set for Wednesday as Tennessee reviews failed lethal injection”; Florida Phoenix, “Florida’s 17th execution of this year is scheduled for Tuesday”; FOX 13 Tampa Bay, “DeSantis signs death warrant for inmate featured in Netflix series, schedules double execution day”; Associated Press via KTAR, “Florida execution called off after DeSantis withdraws death warrant for the first time”