lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

The court has previously upheld this lethal injection protocol against similar challenges. It differs from the single-drug injection used by states like Tennessee, where death row inmate Christa Pike was rushed to the hospital last month after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Defense attorneys also argued that the jurors who recommended the death penalty for Reaves were never told that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs rated Reaves, an Army veteran, as 100% disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder, which was caused by his service in the Vietnam War. More than 100 veterans sent DeSantis a letter on Monday asking him to stop the execution.

Final appeals for Reaves were still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Florida is close to matching last year's record-setting numbers

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Besides leading all other states last year, Florida has carried out more than half the 31 total executions in the U.S. so far this year. In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.

Jesse Guardado, 64, is next scheduled to die by injection in Florida on Nov. 5. He was convicted of robbing and killing a woman in order to buy drugs in 2004.