25 February 2026 :
February 24, 2026 - Florida. Melvin Trotter, 65, Black, was executed on February 24
Melvin Trotter was pronounced dead at 6.15 pm following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1986 stabbing death of Virgie Langford.
The curtain to the execution chamber went up at the scheduled 6 p.m. execution time. Trotter declined to give a last statement and the drugs began flowing about two minutes later. Trotter began to breath heavily and twitch about a minute afterward. Then his movements slowed about two minutes later.
The prison warden checked Trotter's face and shouted his name, but there was no reaction. A medic was then called in at 6:14 p.m. to check the inmate's vital signs and Trotter was declared dead a minute later.
Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesperson for Republican governor Ron DeSantis, said there were no complications.
Trotter was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1987. After the state supreme court found the trial court erred in handling aggravating factors in his case, he again drew the death penalty at a resentencing in 1993.
According to court records, Trotter stabbed and strangled Langford on 16 June 1986, at her store in Tampa Bay. Afterward, a truck driver found Langford bleeding but alive on the back floor of the store, and she provided key details about her attacker before dying at a hospital.
Besides recalling Trotter’s physical appearance, Langford said he had a Tropicana employee badge with the name “Melvin” on it. According to court records, police later found a T-shirt with Langford’s blood type at Trotter’s home and the man’s handprint on a meat cooler at the store.
Trotter’s attorneys have argued that Trotter has long suffered from intellectual disabilities, pointing to school records, early IQ scores and testimony from family members describing Trotter’s limited ability to read, manage money or live independently. But prosecutors and courts, including the Florida Supreme Court, have repeatedly ruled that later evaluations showing higher cognitive functioning outweigh those early findings
The Florida supreme court recently denied appeals in which Trotter’s attorneys argued officials had mismanaged his death penalty protocols. The US supreme court denied Trotter’s final appeal on Tuesday.
Trotter becomes the 2nd person executed in Florida this year, the 127th since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979, the 4th execution of 2026 in the US, and the 1,658th since the nation resumed executions in 1977.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/24/florida-execution-melvin-trotter
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/man-put-to-death-for-1986-killing-of-grocery-store-owner-in-floridas-2nd-execution-this-year
