During Florida's 1994 gubernatorial race, Republican candidate Jeb Bush accused Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles of being too soft on crime; Chiles' immediate predecessor, Bush pointed out, had signed almost 10 times as many death warrants as Chiles had.

But a closer examination revealed that Chiles' death warrants led to eight executions over four years, compared to his predecessor's nine. Chiles, it turned out, had simply been more efficient and saved Florida taxpayers money by avoiding litigation over premature death warrants. The attack backfired and Bush lost the election.

The debate, fiery at the time, seems almost quaint in 2025.

This year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis successfully ordered the executions of 19 people — more than Chiles and his predecessor had combined in those eight years. Florida's record-setting number represents more than 40% of all U.S. executions this year, bucking a nationwide decline in executions over the past decade.

Experts said DeSantis is ultimately responsible for the spike in executions, but the Republican governor has offered only vague explanations as to why.

"Gov. DeSantis is deciding who will be executed and when they will be executed, and he has the sole authority to make those decisions," said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "And he really isn't telling his constituents very much information at all about why he's making these decisions."

Some Florida media outlets and death-penalty opponents have speculated that the death warrants may wax and wane with DeSantis' immediate political ambitions.

DeSantis signed just three death warrants resulting in two executions in 2019, the year he took office. He did not sign another until 2023, the year he kicked off his presidential campaign as a tough-on-crime candidate in Republican primaries. He signed six that year, saying COVID-19 had delayed the execution process.

In 2024, the year he suspended his campaign, he signed just one death warrant. But in 2025, Florida executed 19 people — more people than the state had executed in the prior decade combined.

"I don't know what his future aspirations are, if he perceives the death penalty as being advantageous to him for that, or his stated reason is that this is for victims and they want closure," said Grace Hanna, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "And I'm sure that's true in many cases, or in some cases, at least. But I'm a murder victim's family member myself, and I work with lots and lots of victims who are opposed to execution."

Other factors also may be at play, including the fact that Florida has 265 people on death row — the largest population of any state besides California, which has not executed anyone in nearly two decades, experts said.

Law360 requested an interview with DeSantis or a staff member who could discuss the reasons for the spike.

DeSantis' office responded with an emailed quote from a spokesperson, a link to a news conference and three screenshots of the governor's social media posts expressing pride in the high number of executions.

"My advice to those who are seeking to avoid the death penalty in Florida would be to not murder people," DeSantis spokesman Alex Lanfranconi said in the email.

The email included a link to a video of a news conference on cancer funding at a children's hospital, during which the governor attributed the surge in executions to a faster review process and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — similar to his explanation for the smaller spike of six executions in 2023.

"I do think the death penalty could be a strong deterrent if you had this stuff happen quicker," DeSantis told reporters. "And there's some instances where, you know, somebody goes and shoots 10 people, they should get the death penalty very quickly."

But the arguments made by the governor and his spokesperson presume that those sentenced to death are actually guilty. This is not always the case in Florida, which leads the nation in death-row exonerations.

Thirty people on Florida's death row have been exonerated since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Over the same time period, Florida has executed 125 people. That means for every four people on death row who are executed in Florida, another has been exonerated — about double the ratio of exonerations to executions nationwide, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Florida also has more liberal standards for imposing death sentences than many other states.

Florida and Alabama are the only two states that do not require jurors to unanimously recommend the death penalty. Alabama requires at least 10 out of 12 jurors to vote for the death penalty, while Florida needs only eight.

The Florida Supreme Court in 2016 ruled that non-unanimous death sentence recommendations are unconstitutional, but reversed itself in 2020.

In 2023, Florida legislators passed a law requiring at least eight of 12 juror votes for an advisory death sentence recommendation and a minimum of five votes for a binding life recommendation. Jurors still must unanimously convict the defendant and find that an aggravating factor required for a death sentence existed. On Dec. 18, the Florida Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the non-unanimity law.

Florida has also recently enacted legislation authorizing death sentences for those convicted of certain sex crimes against minors.

In Florida, the governor can set the pace of executions with his broad authority to issue death warrants.

State law says the governor shall issue a death warrant within 30 days after the state's Supreme Court certifies that the defendant has completed a direct appeal and postconviction proceedings, and has either finished habeas corpus proceedings in federal court or waited too long to file a habeas petition — and after the governor has completed his clemency process.

The governor also has the sole discretion to sign an execution warrant if he finds that the Florida Supreme Court has failed to make such a certification.

Once signed, the prison warden has 180 days to carry out the execution.

The governor has authority over the clemency review and investigation process and can unilaterally issue temporary reprieves.

In order to grant clemency, the governor and at least two elected cabinet members must agree following an investigation by the Florida Commission on Offender Review. The qualifying cabinet members include the state attorney general, the chief financial officer and the commissioner of agriculture.

Mark Schlakman, senior program director for the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, has long advocated for reform of Florida's death penalty process. In the 1990s, he spent two years reviewing potential executive clemency cases for former governor Chiles.

Schlakman said the sudden spike in executions cannot be attributed to the courts, which would presumably stay a death warrant that was issued prematurely. But the governor's publicly aggressive posture toward pursuing executions may give a hint, he said.

"Does it suggest a different approach as far as the depth and breadth of clemency review?" Schlakman said. "Maybe. So there we are."

--Editing by Kelly Duncan and Melissa Treolo.