An inmate convicted of fatally shooting a man and his girlfriend during a home robbery was executed Thursday night, becoming the nineteenth execution carried out this year in Florida.

Frank Athen Walls, 58, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving a three-drug injection Drugs at Florida State Prison near Starke. Walls was found guilty of two counts of murder and other charges, and sentenced to death in 1988. The Florida Supreme Court later overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial, and Walls was again sentenced to death in 1992 for the murders of Edward Alger and his girlfriend, Ann Peterson, according to KGNS News. Prior to the lethal injection, Walls apologized in a brief statement, according to Alex Lanfranconi, spokesman for Governor Ron DeSantis, who relayed the final words from the scene. “Good evening, everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to express what is in my heart. If any family members are here, I am sorry for everything I did, the pain I caused, and everything you have suffered all these years,” Walls said. With this execution, Florida achieved a historic record, accounting for two out of every five death penalty proceedings in the U.S. this year. year.

So far this year, 47 executions have been carried out in the country, most by lethal injection, although other methods have also been used, such as nitrogen gas, applied to five inmates in Alabama and Louisiana and considered controversial due to the suffering it causes, as well as firing squads, with three executions in South Carolina.

The 19 executions carried out in Florida this year, all by lethal injection, far exceed the state's annual record of eight deaths since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976.

However, the relaxation of the criteria for applying the death penalty in recent years, coupled with a governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, who shows no intention of slowing the pace of executions,This led to the state breaking that record in July, according to EFE.

Since 2023, Florida has been one of only two U.S. states, along with Alabama, where a unanimous jury verdict is not required for capital punishment. It also has the lowest number of votes required to recommend the death penalty, needing only 8 out of 12 jurors.

It currently has 265 inmates on death row. It is the second state after California, with more than 500 death row inmates, although the Californian government imposed a moratorium on all executions in 2019.