Florida has scheduled a December 18, 2025 execution for Frank Walls, sentenced to death for the 1987 murders of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson. It is the 19th death warrant signed this year by Governor DeSantis, making this Florida's deadliest year in modern history.

The following is from Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty:

Frank Walls is scheduled to be executed on December 18. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear for over two decades that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits executing people with intellectual disability. For nearly as long, Walls’ case has been one of the clearest examples of how Florida’s death penalty machinery ignores that mandate — trapping a man with lifelong cognitive impairments in a system designed to deny meaningful review.

On November 25, Walls’ lawyers filed a Successive Motion to Vacate his conviction and sentence, along with a Motion for Stay of Execution, noting that his warrant was signed under a schedule so truncated it cannot support due process. The defense explains that “the abbreviated schedule… does not allow Mr. Walls to appropriately address the constitutional issues raised in his successive motion.” And because of the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend, 11 of the 30 days of the warrant period — more than 1/3rd of Frank’s final month alive — he is barred from communicating with counsel. Frank Walls deserves this meaningful review. Florida is giving him the opposite.

None of this is meant to make light of the grief and pain caused by Frank’s actions. He was sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of Ann Peterson, and is serving a life sentence for the murders of Edgar Peterson and Audrey Gygi. These were tragic crimes, and the collective suffering of their families deserves our deepest sympathy. But justice demands the highest standard of review. When our state executes a person with documented intellectual disability, it ignores both constitutional safeguards and basic human dignity. Justice demands more than carrying out a sentence; it requires ensuring that our most vulnerable citizens are protected, not condemned.

Read more at FADP.org

While most states have moved away from the death penalty, Florida is accelerating executions at an alarming rate. Each warrant signed underscores the state’s embrace of a punishment that is arbitrary, racially biased, and out of step with evolving standards of decency.

We believe in accountability, but true accountability does not require execution. A sentence of life without the possibility of parole protects society while also recognizing the human capacity for redemption and the role of childhood trauma in shaping adult behavior.

Florida does not need the death penalty to be safe. This execution will not make us safer, it will simply add another act of violence to an already tragic story. Justice does not require death.

Please sign the petition asking Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida State Board of Executive Clemency to do everything within their power to stop this execution, including issuing a stay, and seeking a path to clemency in the case.