STARK, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of fatally shooting a police officer with his own service-style weapon during a traffic stop was set to be executed in Florida on Tuesday night.
Billy Leon Kearse, 53, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection at the Florida State Prison near Stark beginning at 6 p.m. Keels was originally sentenced to death in 1991 for first-degree murder and armed robbery.
The Florida Supreme Court found that the trial court failed to provide jurors with certain information regarding aggravating circumstances and ordered a resentencing. In 1997, Keels was sentenced to death.
This is the third execution scheduled for 2026 in Florida, following a record 19 executions last year. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has carried out more executions in one year than any other governor in Florida since reinstating the death penalty in 1976. The previous highest numbers were eight executions in 1984 under former governors Bob Graham and eight in 2014 under Rick Scott.
According to court records, in January 1991, Fort Pierce police officer Danny Parrish pulled over Keels for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. When Kiles was unable to produce a valid driver’s license, Parrish ordered Kiles out of the vehicle and attempted to handcuff him.
A fight ensued and Keels took Parrish’s gun away, prosecutors said. Keels fired 14 times, striking the officer nine times in the body and four times in the body armor. A nearby taxi driver heard the gunshots and used Parrish’s radio to call for help.
Parrish was taken to a nearby hospital but died from a gunshot wound, officials said. Meanwhile, police used license plate information obtained by Parrish before approaching Keels to identify the attacker’s vehicle and home address, where Keels was arrested.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court rejected Kearse’s appeal. His lawyers argued that he was unconstitutionally denied a fair phase of his sentence and that his intellectual disability made his execution unconstitutional.
The final appeal is before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.
In 2025, a total of 47 people were executed in the United States. Florida leads the list of death warrants signed by DeSantis, far ahead of Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, which have each carried out five executions.
In addition to two executions in Florida this year, Texas and Oklahoma have each executed one person so far.
Florida has planned two more executions this month. Michael Lee King, 54, is expected to die on March 17, and James Aren Duckett, 68, is scheduled to be executed on March 31.
All executions in Florida are carried out by lethal injection, using sedatives, paralytics and heart-stopping drugs, according to the Department of Corrections.
