Florida executed David Pittman, 63, by lethal injection on Wednesday in what was a record 12th execution in the state this year. Before 2025, Florida’s highest number of executions was eight in 2014. Two more Florida executions are scheduled for this fall: Victor Tony (Sept. 30) and Samuel Lee Smithers (Oct. 14).
So far 31 people have been executed in the U.S. to date this year, with Florida leading the nation on a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis, who has signed more warrants than any of his predecessors.
Pittman had been convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for killing his estranged wife’s sister and parents in Mulberry, Florida. During Pittman’s trial, mitigation evidence was presented but his trial counsel failed to investigate or present any expert evidence of intellectual disability, in part, because people with intellectual disability were not protected from the death penalty at the time. His jurors recommended the death penalty by a 9 to 3 vote.
Since Pittman’s trial, the understanding of and science surrounding intellectual disability has changed drastically. In 2002, Atkins v. Virginia held the Eighth Amendment prohibits executing individuals with intellectual disability. In Atkins, the Court explained that people with intellectual impairments are more vulnerable and “less morally culpable” than others, and therefore that executing individuals with intellectual disability violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Despite Atkins, many people in Florida were not granted relief because of Florida’s strict statutory rule requiring individuals to prove an IQ score lower than 70. In 2014, the Supreme Court decided Hall v. Florida, clarifying Atkins and finding Florida’s IQ threshold requirement for providing intellectual disability unconstitutional. Two years later in Walls v. State, the Florida Supreme Court held Hall should be applied retroactively to people like Pittman whose death sentence had already became final.
Pittman sought relief in court arguing that his intellectual disability prohibited his execution. IQ testing performed when he was a child and while he was in prison placed his IQ in the low 70s, well within the threshold most experts consider indicative of intellectual disability. Before he could be granted a hearing to present evidence of his intellectual disability, the composition of the Florida Supreme Court changed. In 2020, the new court decided Phillips v. State, reversing its earlier decision that Hall should be applied retroactively. In other words, the Phillips decision established that defendants like Pittman whose intellectual disabilities claims were previously denied under Florida’s old standards (which the U.S. Supreme Court found invalid in Hall) could not seek new hearings. Pittman was denied relief and the constitutional protections his lawyers argued he deserved, not because the courts determined his intellectual disability claims lacked merit, but because of procedural limitations created by the Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law.
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