Florida's death chamber isn't just busy—it's being pushed to a pace a former prison warden says the system can't safely handle. Ron McAndrew, who once ran Florida State Prison and oversaw three executions, is sounding that alarm in light of the lawsuit filed by death row prisoner Frank Walls before he became the 19th person executed by the state this year. Walls didn't challenge the death penalty itself, but how Florida is carrying it out. His suit claimed the Department of Corrections mishandled lethal injection drugs, kept inadequate pharmacy logs, failed to consistently document how drugs are mixed and used, used insufficient doses at least twice this year, and also used chemicals after their expiration dates in four executions.
"These are not minor paperwork issues," but "serious failures," McAndrew wrote at the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday, a day before Walls' execution. He said lethal injection is built on a precise sequence: the first drug is supposed to fully knock a person out before later drugs paralyze and stop the heart. If the drugs are weak, expired, or mis-dosed, McAndrew warned, a prisoner could feel intense pain while unable to communicate—constituting cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. The lawsuit essentially asked whether Florida's current pace and practices still guard against that outcome.
McAndrew noted "how easily such failures can occur when executions are scheduled back-to-back." Executions require a team—officers, medical staff, supervisors—performing complex, high-stress tasks, from checking records to monitoring signs of consciousness, with no margin for error. When execution dates stack up, he wrote, there's less time for careful review or emotional recovery, and the burden falls on rank-and-file staff, not the politicians touting "toughness." "Florida should listen to what this lawsuit is telling us," McAndrew concluded. Read the full piece here.
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