Florida Set to Execute Inmate Who Killed Cellmate to Get Death Sentence as State's Execution Pace Surges

STARKE, Fla. — Florida is scheduled to execute a prisoner on Tuesday who told investigators he strangled his cellmate nearly 18 years ago because he wanted to be sent to death row rather than spend the rest of his life in prison.

James Robertson, 63, is set to receive a lethal injection at noon at Florida State Prison near Starke. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the December 2008 killing of Frank Hart and has given up all of his appeals.

If carried out, the execution would be Florida's 17th this year, extending a record pace under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

A killing to reach death row

According to court records, Robertson and Hart were cellmates at Charlotte Correctional Institution, north of Fort Myers, when Robertson tied several socks together and used them to strangle Hart as he slept.

Robertson told investigators the attack was unprovoked and that he killed Hart because he wanted a death sentence. He said he was tired of prison life, according to investigators. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has noted that Robertson admitted to the killing specifically to obtain a death sentence.

Robertson had been incarcerated since 1980, when he was sent to prison at age 17 for burglary and assault. His sentence grew over the following decades as he accumulated convictions for escape, battery and weapons offenses while behind bars. Hart had been imprisoned since 2003 on a sexual battery conviction.

Waived appeals

After pleading guilty, Robertson also waived a penalty phase in which a jury would have recommended either death or life in prison. A judge sentenced him to death, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence in 2016.

Robertson later gave up all post-conviction proceedings. During that process, his public defender argued that Florida Bar rules required him to respect Robertson's wish to accept the death penalty.

At a hearing earlier this month, Robertson again told a judge he understood his execution had been scheduled and that he did not want to file final appeals with the Florida Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court.

Robertson has been featured in a Netflix series, according to local media reports.

Second execution called off

Robertson's execution was originally one of two Florida planned for Tuesday. Last week, DeSantis withdrew the death warrant for William Lee Thompson, the first time he has done so, according to records.

The governor did not give a reason, but he had temporarily stayed Thompson's execution last month pending a psychiatric evaluation. Withdrawing the warrant does not change Thompson's sentence. He remains on death row, and a new warrant could be signed in the future.

Thompson, 74, was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery in the 1976 killing of 23-year-old Sally Ivester. DeSantis is the third Florida governor to sign a death warrant for him, after Bob Graham and Bob Martinez scheduled executions in the 1980s that were halted by appeals and stays.

Thompson's attorneys have said he has dementia and failing health, conditions his lawyer described as "gravely concerning with an impending execution." They have asked that he be moved to an appropriate medical facility.

The only other Florida inmate still alive after a DeSantis death warrant is James Dailey, 80, whose 2019 execution for the murder of a 14-year-old girl was halted by a federal judge as his attorneys disputed his guilt. That stay was later lifted, but no new warrant has been signed.

Opponents question deterrence

Death penalty opponents say Robertson's case undercuts the argument that capital punishment deters violent crime.

"Frank Hart deserved to be safe in state custody, and his loved ones deserve our compassion," said Maria DeLiberato, legal and policy director for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

DeLiberato said the state must examine the conditions that led to the killing and consider that the existence of the death penalty may have prompted the very violence it is intended to prevent.

Record pace of executions

DeSantis, who leaves office in January, oversaw 19 executions in 2025, the most by any Florida governor in a single year since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume in 1976.

Florida has accounted for more than half of the 30 executions carried out nationwide so far this year. In 2025, 47 people were executed across the United States.

In July, Florida executed two prisoners on the same day, the first state to do so in nearly a decade.

Two more executions are scheduled. William Reaves, 77, is set to be executed Oct. 20 for fatally shooting a sheriff's deputy in 1986. Jesse Guardado, 64, is scheduled for Nov. 5 for robbing and killing a woman in 2004 to buy drugs. If all three are carried out, Florida would match last year's record of 19 executions with eight weeks left in the year.

DeSantis has said little publicly about the pace but has previously described his aim as delivering justice to victims' families who have waited decades.

"If I honestly thought someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger," the governor said last year.

National scrutiny

Robertson's execution comes amid heightened national attention to capital punishment. In Tennessee, Christa Pike survived an execution attempt two weeks ago despite receiving two lethal doses of pentobarbital. Last week, the Pentagon said the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan would be livestreamed.

Florida carries out executions using a three-drug combination of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.