WASHINGTON, D.C. — Troubling errors and a lack of transparency in Florida’s execution protocols have drawn scrutiny from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who warned that the state’s secrecy laws may place people on death row at risk of Eighth Amendment violations.
Justice Sotomayor said Florida’s classification of key information related to executions prevents incarcerated individuals from obtaining the records necessary to challenge potentially unconstitutional methods of execution.
The Death Penalty Information Center reports that Florida has executed 21 people on death row in 2025 and 2026. The first person executed in 2026, Ronnie Heath, along with two other death row prisoners, raised complaints about Florida’s failure to follow its own execution protocol.
Florida uses a method called the “Etomidate Protocol,” a three-part system in which death row prisoners are first injected with etomidate, a sedative, then rocuronium bromide, a paralytic, and finally potassium acetate, which induces cardiac arrest.
Concerns arose after a public records request revealed that Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) records showed multiple mishandlings of drugs used in executions.
In Heath’s petition for a writ of certiorari — an appeal for a higher court, such as the Supreme Court, to review the decision of a lower court, in this case the Florida Supreme Court — these errors were documented. Pictures of handwritten FDOC records were included showing that, for four executions in August and September 2025, the etomidate used was expired by more than six months.
Records show two executions in 2025 in which lower-than-required dosages of the paralytic rocuronium bromide and the drug used to induce cardiac arrest, potassium acetate, were administered. Additionally, FDOC records showed that for two executions in 2025 officials administered lidocaine, which is not included in the Etomidate Protocol.
Attorneys for Heath noted that “using the incorrect dosage or an expired sedative increases ‘the risk of conscious pain during an execution … and the possibility of prolonged suffering.’” The paralytic agent can compound the problem because it “generally masks outward signs of distress.”
An anesthesiologist and professor at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Dr. Joel Zivot, analyzed the FDOC records for Heath and stated, “[a]dministering expired drugs to a prisoner during a lethal injection execution could … result in a drawn-out, torturous execution. … The FDOC protocol does not allow for ad hoc substitutions (in the case of Lidocaine), and the lack of transparency creates unreasonable and serious risks.”
Heath’s attorneys filed the public records request for these FDOC records after the department refused to provide further information about these discrepancies. The Florida Supreme Court later refused a new public records request by Heath’s attorneys, citing “secrecy statutes,” which classify records that could reveal information identifying “an executioner” or “any person prescribing, preparing, compounding, dispensing, or administering a lethal injection.”
Ultimately, Heath’s petition for a writ of certiorari was denied. He was executed on Feb. 10, 2026.
Justice Sotomayor stated that Florida courts placed death row prisoners into a “Catch-22” by allowing the FDOC to deny record requests.
“The prisoners do not yet have enough information to raise a[n] Eighth Amendment claim,” she said. “The very reason the prisoners are seeking the records is to gather enough information to raise” such a claim.
Alongside Heath, other death row prisoners who petitioned for a writ of certiorari included Frank Walls and Melvin Trotter.
In his complaint, Walls stated the “‘source of the drugs’ is ‘unknown,’ and ‘[l]ittle is known about … standards for storing or testing of the drugs.’”
Although a federal judge had acknowledged that Walls had “presented evidence demonstrating that he may well suffer a cruel death by experiencing a feeling akin to drowning,” his execution was allowed to proceed. He was executed on Dec. 18, 2025.
In the case of Melvin Trotter, his petition for a writ of certiorari was also denied. He was executed on Feb. 24, 2026.
Ultimately, his petition lacked an “evidentiary basis,” though it raised concerns in the view of Justice Sotomayor, who stated public records requests are necessary to “prove or disprove claims like Trotter’s.”
“Individuals seeking to challenge the method of their execution should not have to guess at whether the State is, or is not, following its execution protocol,” Sotomayor said.
“Nor does the State appear to have any legitimate confidentiality interest in shielding from inspection basic facts about the implementation of its execution protocol, such as whether the State is using expired drugs,” she continued.
“If the protocol is in fact being followed, then transparency instills confidence in the protocol for everyone — prisoners, the courts, and the public alike,” Sotomayor said.
“If it is not, then secrecy is intolerable, and disclosure of the relevant records is indispensable.”
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