Florida Prepares for Second Execution of the Year
STARKE, Fla. — Florida is set to carry out its second execution of the year on Tuesday evening. Melvin Trotter, 65, who was convicted of murdering a grocery store owner during a robbery, is scheduled for execution at Florida State Prison near Starke. Trotter’s execution will be administered via a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m.
Trotter was first convicted and sentenced to death for the first-degree murder of Virgie Langford in 1987. However, the Florida Supreme Court later identified errors in the trial court’s handling of aggravating factors, leading to a new sentencing in 1993 where Trotter once again received the death penalty.
Tuesday’s execution follows a year in which a record 19 executions were carried out in Florida. In 2025, under Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state executed more people in a single year than any previous Florida governor since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The previous record was eight executions in 2014.
According to court documents, Trotter strangled and stabbed Langford at her Palmetto store in 1986. A truck driver discovered Langford alive following the attack, and she managed to describe her assailant before succumbing to her injuries at a hospital. Langford noted that her attacker had a Tropicana employee badge bearing the name “Melvin,” and authorities later found a T-shirt with her blood type in Trotter’s home, along with his handprint on a meat cooler at the crime scene.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court rejected appeals from Trotter’s legal team, who argued that the state’s execution protocols were mismanaged and cited Trotter’s age as a reason to exempt him from execution. His final appeals are still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A total of 47 people were executed across the United States in 2025, with Florida leading the count due to numerous death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas each executed five individuals last year.
This year, Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida have each conducted one execution. On February 10, Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, became the first person executed in Florida this year. Heath was convicted in the 1989 murder of Michael Sheridan.
Florida has two more executions scheduled for March: Billy Leon Kearse, 53, on March 3, and Michael Lee King, 54, on March 17. The state’s executions are carried out using a combination of a sedative, a paralytic, and a heart-stopping drug, as per the Department of Corrections.
