This is the fifth execution of a person on death row in the United States in 2026, the third in Florida.

A man sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in 1991 was executed on Tuesday, March 3, 2026 in Florida, in the southeastern United States.

A man sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in 1991 was executed on Tuesday, March 3, 2026 in Florida, in the southeastern United States.

Billy Kearse, 53, was executed by lethal injection and declared dead at 6:24 p.m. local time (11:24 p.m. GMT), the Florida Department of Corrections announced.

This is the fifth execution carried out in the United States since the beginning of the year, all by lethal injection, including three in Florida.

Then 18 years old, Billy Kearse fatally wounded a police officer with the latter's service weapon during a traffic stop in January 1991.

2025 record year

In total, 47 executions took place in the United States in 2025, compared to about twenty per year for the past decade, the highest level since the 52 recorded in 2009.

The vast majority were carried out by lethal injection, namely 39 in 2025.

Five others were executed last year by nitrogen inhalation, a method used for the first time in the world by Alabama (south) in 2024 and compared by UN experts to a form of "torture", and three by firing squad in South Carolina, for the first time in the United States since 2010.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states. Three others, California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, observe a moratorium on executions by order of the governor.