USA - Florida. James Robertson, 63, White, executed on October 13

October 13, 2026 - Florida. James Robertson, 63, White, was executed on October 13

Officials said James Robertson was pronounced dead after he received a three-shot series of lethal injections at a Florida state prison in Raiford.

“The sentence of the state of Florida versus James Robertson was carried out at 12.32 pm,” a state corrections department spokesperson, Jordan Kirkland, said at a news conference immediately afterwards.

“The execution took place without incident.”

Executions in Florida are usually carried out at 6 pm. This one was scheduled for midday because another man, William Lee Thompson, was also due to be executed on the same day. In recent days (see HoC 8 October 2026), Governor DeSantis had withdrawn the execution order for Thompson because it appears to be established that the man suffers from advanced senile dementia. DeSantis’s action is not an act of clemency, as Thompson remains on death row for the time being, where he will undergo a psychiatric assessment. Should he be declared ‘competent’, the governor could sign a new execution warrant.

James Robertson declined to offer any last words before receiving a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later. It was a stark contrast to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee two weeks ago, where she was rushed to the hospital after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Robertson’s execution took place after a circuit court in Charlotte County accepted his 5 October request to withdraw all appeals. He pleaded guilty to the 2008 murder of his cellmate, Frank Hart, at the Charlotte correction institution near Fort Myers – and confessed he committed the crime unprovoked because he wanted to be sent on death row.

Hart was killed just eight days before he was due to be released.

Robertson was 17 years old when he went to prison in 1980 for burglary and assault. Years of convictions for escape, battery and weapons while in prison kept adding time to his total sentence. Hart had been sent to prison in 2003 following a sexual battery conviction.

Florida executes people by injecting them with a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

James Robertson becomes the 17th inmate executed in Florida this year, 141st in total since 1979, when the state resumed imposing the death penalty, the 31st person to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,685th overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.