Florida's 18th Execution of the Year: Veterans' Plea Fails to Stop Injection for 77-Year-Old Reaves

Florida has carried out its 18th execution of the year. Vietnam veteran William Reaves, 77, was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday. A letter from fellow veterans urging that the execution be halted was not heeded.

Reaves was pronounced dead at 6.12pm following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been convicted of first-degree murder in the 1986 shooting death of Indian River County deputy Richard Raczkowski.

The curtain of the death chamber went up promptly at the 6pm execution time; Reaves was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm. Asked whether he had any last statement, he said: 'No, I do not.' The injection began immediately after that.

About 30 seconds later, Reaves took several big breaths and then stopped moving. After a few minutes, the team warden shook his shoulders and called his name, but there was no response. A medic was called in shortly afterwards to check for a heartbeat or other signs of life, and about a minute later Reaves was pronounced dead.

Reaves was the eighth Florida prisoner over the age of 70 put to death this year, highlighting the nation's ageing death-row population as Florida continues to far outpace the rest of the country in total executions.

Last year Florida set a state record with 19 executions in a single year, and it would tie that mark if another execution scheduled for next month is carried out. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has continued this aggressive use of the death penalty in his final term.

DeSantis, who leaves office in January after two terms, has said his goal is to deliver justice to victims' families who have waited decades for death sentences to be carried out.

According to court records, Deputy Raczkowski responded in September 1986 to a 911 call from a convenience store in Vero Beach. Reaves later acknowledged that he had placed the call himself from a payphone outside the store.

While the two spoke, a gun fell out of Reaves's shorts. The two struggled over the weapon, and Reaves eventually regained control of it. Investigators said the deputy was trying to run away when Reaves shot him four times; the deputy later died of his wounds.

Reaves was convicted and sentenced to death about a year after the shooting. But the Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction because of a conflict of interest involving the prosecutor and ordered a new trial. He was convicted again and sentenced to death in 1992, and subsequent appeals were unsuccessful.

On Tuesday afternoon the US Supreme Court rejected Reaves's final appeal without comment. The Florida Supreme Court had also rejected his appeals to spare his life last week.

One issue raised by his attorneys was Florida's method of execution. According to the Department of Corrections, all Florida executions are carried out by lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart. The court has previously upheld this protocol against similar challenges.

Defence attorneys also argued that the jurors who recommended the death penalty were never told that the Department of Veterans Affairs had rated Reaves — an army veteran — as 100 percent disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his service in the Vietnam war. On Monday, more than 100 veterans sent DeSantis a letter urging him to stop the execution.

In 2025, a total of 47 people were executed in the United States. Besides leading all states last year, Florida has carried out more than half of the 32 executions in the US so far this year. In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day — the first state in nearly a decade to do so. The next execution in Florida is scheduled for 5 November, when Jesse Guardado, 64, convicted of robbing and killing a woman in 2004 to buy drugs, is set to die by injection.