A man convicted of fatally shooting a police officer with his own service weapon during a traffic stop was executed Tuesday evening in Florida. Billy Leon Kearse, 53, became the third person put to death by the state this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025.
Kearse was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke, after receiving a three-drug injection. He had been condemned for the 1991 killing of Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish.
Court records detail that Officer Parrish had stopped Kearse in January 1991 for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. When Kearse failed to produce a valid driver’s license, Parrish ordered him out of his vehicle and attempted to handcuff him, leading to a struggle.
During the altercation, Kearse seized Parrish’s firearm and fired 14 times, striking the officer nine times in the body and four times in his body armor, according to prosecutors. A taxi driver, hearing the shots, used the officer's radio to call for help. Parrish died after being rushed to a hospital. Police subsequently used license plate information, which Parrish had relayed during the stop, to arrest Kearse at his home.
Kearse was initially convicted of first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm and sentenced to death in 1991. The Florida Supreme Court later found the trial court failed to give jurors certain information about aggravating circumstances and ordered a new sentencing. Kearse again drew the death penalty in 1997.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, far outpacing Alabama, South Carolina and Texas which each held five executions last year. The 19 Florida executions that year outstripped the previous high totals of eight in both 1984 and 2014.
Besides the three Florida executions to date this year, Texas and Oklahoma have each executed one person each so far in 2026.
Two more Florida executions are scheduled soon, starting with Michael Lee King on March 17 for the 2008 kidnap and killing of a mother of two. Former police officer James Duckett is set to be executed March 31 for the 1987 killing of an 11-year-old girl.
All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
Hours before Tuesday’s execution, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kearse’s final appeal without comment. And last week, the Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Kearse
