White Lives Matter More to DeSantis: Suit says Racist Suspect Governor is Only Executing Prisoners who Killed White People. Not a Single Execution for a White Prisoner who Killed a Non-White Victim

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From [HERE] Over the past two weeks, two Florida death row pris­on­ers filed fresh chal­lenges to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ deci­sions to sign his tenth and eleventh death war­rants of 2025. On July 29, 2025, Kayle Barrington Bates (also known as Maud Dib Al Sharif) brought a civ­il suit against Gov. DeSantis alleg­ing Florida’s exe­cu­tion war­rant process ​“is infect­ed with racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al arbi­trari­ness.” Included in the claim is a sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis show­ing that ​“95% of the exe­cu­tions that Governor DeSantis has autho­rized involved white victims.” 

“Governor DeSantis has not exe­cut­ed a sin­gle white defen­dant for killing a non-white defendant[.]”

On the after­noon of the same day Mr. Bates’ law­suit was filed, Gov. DeSantis issued a war­rant for the exe­cu­tion of Curtis Windom, who was con­vict­ed of the killing of Johnnie Lee, Valerie Davis, and Mary Lubin, all of whom were Black. On August 3, 2025, attor­neys for Mr. Windom filed a motion argu­ing that ​“the post­con­vic­tion defense bar [is] over­whelmed by an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of death war­rants being signed [this] year…every two weeks,” and that ​“the time in which post­con­vic­tion coun­sel can even respond has been reduced by 33%.” 

Florida’s process for deter­min­ing exe­cu­tions and clemen­cy oper­ates in com­plete secre­cy. Under Gov. DeSantis, Florida has already car­ried out more exe­cu­tions than any oth­er state this year, and has sched­uled the exe­cu­tions of Mr. Bates for August 19, 2025, and Mr. Windom for August 28, 2025. There are many ques­tions sur­round­ing the governor’s secre­tive deci­sion-mak­ing process — he alone decides who will be exe­cut­ed, and when, and refus­es to pro­vide the pub­lic with an expla­na­tion for this decision. 

On July 29, 2025, Mr. Bates’ attor­neys filed a civ­il law­suit against Gov. DeSantis under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleg­ing racial bias in Florida’s exe­cu­tions war­rant process. Mr. Bates, who is Black, was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death in 1983 by an all-white jury. His con­vic­tion rest­ed on a con­fes­sion made under the pres­sure of a five-hour inter­ro­ga­tion by police and with­out the pres­ence of legal coun­sel. He was resen­tenced to death in 1995 in a non-unan­i­mous 9 – 3 jury vote. Florida and Alabama are the only two states that autho­rize juries to rec­om­mend death sen­tences with a non-unan­i­mous vote. The U.S. Supreme Court has nev­er direct­ly ruled on whether jury una­nim­i­ty is required in death sentencing. 

Mr. Bates’ com­plaint seeks declara­to­ry and injunc­tive relief, includ­ing a stay of exe­cu­tion. It presents sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence of racial dis­par­i­ties in Florida’s use of the death penal­ty, not­ing ​“under Governor DeSantis’ administration…a defen­dant who is con­vict­ed of killing a white vic­tim is over fif­teen times more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than a defen­dant whose vic­tims are not white.” It notes as well that “[n]early 88% of Florida’s mod­ern exe­cu­tions have been for cas­es with white vic­tims,” and argues that ​“Florida’s cur­rent pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of white lives can­not be viewed inde­pen­dent­ly of its deval­u­a­tion of Black lives.” [MORE]