A Florida man convicted of abducting a woman from a Panhandle insurance office and killing her is set to be executed on Tuesday, August 19.
67-year-old Kayle Bates is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke under a death warrant signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
This would be Florida’s 10th death sentence carried out in 2025, extending the state record for a single year, as two more executions are set for September.
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Since the US Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions was eight in 2014, per The Post.
More people have been executed in Florida than in any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each.
For the June 14, 1982, killing of Janet White in Bay County in the Florida Panhandle, the 67-year-old Florida man was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, and attempted sexual battery, and is now set to be executed.
Court documents indicate that Bates kidnapped White from the insurance office where she worked, took her into some woods behind the building, attempted to rape her, stabbed her to death, and tore a diamond ring from one of her fingers.
His attorneys have filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court, as well as a federal lawsuit claiming DeSantis’ process for signing death warrants was discriminatory.
Last Tuesday, the federal lawsuit was dismissed, with the judge finding problems with the lawsuit’s statistical analysis.
The court ruled that even if the numbers were in line, they wouldn’t necessarily prove discrimination.
That same day, the Florida Supreme Court denied Bates’ pending claims, including arguments that evidence of organic brain damage had been inadequately considered during his second penalty phase. Afterwards, the court ruled that Bates had three decades to raise these claims.
A US Supreme Court decision is still pending on Bates’ final appeal. A total of 28 men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the US, and at least 10 other people are scheduled to be put to death in seven states for the remainder of 2025.
Florida executions are carried out using a three-drug lethal injection, which is a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart, per the state Department of Corrections.
