Florida executes Billy Kearse by lethal injection for 1991 killing of police officer
A 53-year-old man convicted in the killing of a police officer during a 1991 traffic stop was executed by lethal injection in Florida, the state’s third execution of the year and the fifth in the United States.
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The Florida Department of Corrections said Billy Kearse was pronounced dead at the state prison in Raiford. Kearse was sentenced to death for fatally shooting Officer Danny Parrish after wrestling away his gun during a roadside stop more than three decades ago.
Kearse’s execution underscores Florida’s stepped-up use of the death penalty. The other executions in the U.S. this year were carried out in Oklahoma and Texas.
Florida carried out the most executions in 2025, with 19, followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, where there were five each. Thirty-nine of last year’s executions were carried out by lethal injection, the primary method in death-penalty states. Three were by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia, a method in which nitrogen gas is pumped into a face mask to induce death by suffocation.
The use of nitrogen gas in capital punishment has drawn international criticism. United Nations experts have denounced nitrogen hypoxia as cruel and inhumane, warning that the method risks severe suffering and may violate international human rights standards.
The legal landscape for capital punishment in the United States remains fractured. The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place that halt executions even as death sentences remain on the books.
President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and has called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes,” aligning the administration with states that have moved to maintain or increase execution activity.
Florida’s reliance on lethal injection in Kearse’s case reflects the dominant execution protocol nationwide, even as challenges mount over drug availability, procurement secrecy and questions about pain during the procedure. States that have reintroduced or authorized alternative methods — including nitrogen hypoxia and the firing squad — say they are seeking legally durable options amid those challenges. Critics, including medical and human rights groups, argue those alternatives may exacerbate the risk of botched or torturous executions.
Kearse’s case traces back to the early 1990s, when a routine traffic stop escalated into a deadly confrontation. Prosecutors said Kearse overpowered Officer Parrish and took his service weapon before firing the fatal shots. The case moved through Florida’s courts for years, with legal disputes over sentencing and method-of-execution protocols common in capital cases, before the state set the date for Kearse’s death by injection.
As Florida continues to carry out executions, the state sits at the center of a broader national debate over the death penalty’s legality, morality and effectiveness as a deterrent. With execution practices and policies diverging sharply across state lines, Kearse’s death punctuates a year in which some states accelerated use of capital punishment while others deepened their retreat from it.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
