Florida completes record-setting ninth execution in 2025

As reported in this AP article, a “man convicted of the 1994 killings of his wife and their two children became the ninth person put to death in Florida this year, his death Thursday marking a state record for a single-year execution total since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty decades ago.”  Here is more:

Edward Zakrzewski, 60, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. After the return of the U.S. death penalty in 1976, Florida carried out a high of eight executions in 2014, a one-year total only matched this year with a mid-July execution and now exceeded….

Florida this year has carried out more executions than any other state, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second with four each. A 10th execution is scheduled in Florida on Aug. 19 and an 11th on Aug. 28 under death warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis….

Zakrzewski was sentenced to die for the June 9, 1994, killings of his 34-year-old wife Sylvia and their children Edward, 7, and Anna, 5, in the Florida Panhandle. Trial testimony showed he carried out the killings at their Okaloosa County home after his wife sought a divorce, and he had told others he would kill his family rather than allow that to happen.

The woman was attacked first with a crowbar and strangled with a rope, court testimony showed. Both children were killed with a machete, and Sylvia was also struck with the blade when Zakrzewski thought she had survived the previous assault, according to court records.

Zakrzewski’s lawyers filed numerous unsuccessful appeals over the years, including a final plea for a stay of execution that the Supreme Court denied on Wednesday…. Before Thursday’s execution, opponents pointed to Zakrzewski’s military service as an Air Force veteran and the fact that a jury voted 7-5 to recommend his execution, barely a majority of the panel. They noted that under current state law, he could not have received the death penalty with a split jury vote.

Notably, Texas executed 40 persons in the year 2000, so Florida is still far away from setting national execution records. But Florida’s busy year has moved the state ahead of Virgnia (113) to now be in third place with 115 total executions, behind only Texas (595) and Oklahoma (129) for most total completed executions in the modern death penalty era.