Picture used for representational goal solely.
| Photograph Credit score: Getty Photographs/iStockphoto
A person convicted of fatally taking pictures a police officer together with his personal service weapon throughout a site visitors cease was executed Tuesday (March 3, 2026) night in Florida, changing into the third individual put to demise by the state this 12 months after a file 19 executions in 2025.
Billy Leon Kearse, 53, was pronounced useless at 6:24 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Jail close to Starke. He was condemned for the 1991 taking pictures demise of Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish.
The execution began simply after 6 p.m.. When a warden requested Kearse if he had any remaining phrases, he mentioned all he may do was apologize from Parrish’s household.
“To his household, I sincerely apologise for what I’ve accomplished,” Kearse mentioned. “There isn’t a method I can ever repay that.” Greater than a dozen relations and cops gathered to watch the execution.
Kearse twitched briefly after the deadly medicine started coming into his system however stopped transferring a number of minutes later. It was one other quarter of an hour earlier than a medic entered the room and pronounced Kearse useless.
Court docket information present Parrish had pulled over Kearse for driving the unsuitable method on a one-way road in January of that 12 months. After Kearse could not produce a legitimate driver’s license, Parrish ordered Kearse out of his car and tried to handcuff him when a battle ensued.
Kearse grabbed Parrish’s firearm in the course of the battle and fired 14 occasions, placing the officer 9 occasions within the physique and 4 occasions in his physique armour, prosecutors mentioned. A taxi driver heard the pictures and referred to as for assistance on the officer’s radio, however Parrish died after being rushed to a hospital. Police used license plate info referred to as in by Parrish in the course of the site visitors cease to arrest Kearse at his house.
Kearse was initially convicted of first-degree homicide and theft with a firearm and sentenced to demise in 1991. The Florida Supreme Court docket later discovered the trial court docket failed to provide jurors sure details about aggravating circumstances and ordered a brand new sentencing. Kearse once more drew the demise penalty in 1997.
A complete of 47 folks have been executed within the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way in which with a flurry of demise warrants signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, far outpacing Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, which every held 5 executions final 12 months. The 19 Florida executions that 12 months outstripped the earlier excessive totals of eight in each 1984 and 2014.
In addition to the three Florida executions thus far this 12 months, Texas and Oklahoma have every executed one individual every up to now in 2026.
Two extra Florida executions are scheduled quickly, beginning with Michael Lee King on March 17 for the 2008 kidnapping and killing of a mom of two. Former police officer James Duckett is about to be executed on March 31 for the 1987 killing of an 11-year-old woman.
All Florida executions are carried out by way of deadly injection utilizing a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the center, in response to the Division of Corrections.
Hours earlier than Tuesday’s (March 3, 2026) execution, the U.S. Supreme Court docket rejected Kearse’s remaining attraction with out remark. And final week, the Florida Supreme Court docket denied appeals filed by Kearse.
Revealed – March 04, 2026 09:54 am IST