Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has withdrawn a death warrant for the first time since taking office, calling off a man’s execution just days before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection in the nation’s busiest death chamber. The Republican governor, who has aggressively used the death penalty in his final term, signed a letter Thursday withdrawing the death warrant for William Lee Thompson. The 74-year-old inmate had been set to die Tuesday for the murder and kidnapping of Sally Ivester in 1976.
A second Florida execution scheduled for the same day is still set to take place. James Robertson, 63, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and waived all appeals in the 2008 strangling of Frank Hart while the men were cellmates at Charlotte Correctional Institution, north of Fort Myers. Robertson told investigators he killed the other man so he could be moved to death row.
