6 Hours Left...
Chadwick Willacy and The State Of Florida
I write this - it’s now 12:00pm, noon on Tuesday April 21st, 2026 - as Florida prepares to murder Chadwick Willacy.
The trajectory towards his execution was - unusually - one of a straight line from Point A to Point B. Normally - is there anything “normal” about setting a date and time for a premeditated killing? - the path is rather convoluted and abounds with detours, pauses and sometime (but rarely) diversions from death.
“Before his death warrant was even signed, Khalil and his legal team submitted public records requests to the Florida Department of Corrections seeking information about the State’s lethal injection protocol, including whether Florida has been using expired drugs, incorrect dosages, or substances not even authorized by the protocol.
Six days later, the Governor signed his death warrant.
We have seen this pattern again and again. Florida tells people facing execution that they can challenge the method of their execution. But when they try, the state blocks access to the very information required to do so. A process that exists on paper but not in reality.”
Grace Hannah, Executive Director, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
You see, Mr. Willacy’s attorneys had the audacity to question the methods and protocols of the body that was convening to murder him. After all, that is what an execution is - a planned, premeditated killing of another human being.
All Florida executions are by lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
NOTE:
a Sedative
a paralytic
a drug that stops the heart
So, because of concerns about exactly what this means in terms of specifics that would cause an undue amount of pain and suffering, and an unconstitutional method of his death, his attorneys requested information that would explain this in detail.
Basically:
Chadwick Willacy did not ask for mercy. He asked for information.
What drugs will you use? Where did they come from? Are they expired?
Who will administer them—and under what protocol?
The State of Florida refused to answer.
Eight days later, the governor signed his death warrant.
In legal framing, the claim was:
The State is withholding critical information necessary to determine whether the execution will violate the Eighth Amendment.
What Mr. Willacy sought was:
Disclosure of lethal injection drugs (What exactly were they?)
Source/manufacturer of the drugs
Expiration dates and storage records
Execution team qualifications
Full written protocol and deviations
Inventory logs and chain-of-custody records
Florida uses a three-drug protocol:
Etomidate (sedative)
Rocuronium bromide (paralytic)
Potassium acetate (heart-stopping agent)
The claim:
If the sedative fails → the prisoner is paralyzed but conscious
That creates suffocation + burning pain from potassium
Lawyers pointed to documented problems:
Use of expired drugs
Incorrect dosages
Use of non-protocol drugs (e.g., lidocaine)
Missing or inconsistent records
Even the U.S. Supreme Court record acknowledged:
“…possibility” of expired drugs, incorrect doses, and undocumented deviation…”
Florida shields key details:
Drug suppliers
Execution personnel
Internal records
This secrecy argument has gained traction - even drawing concern from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who warned that Florida is:
“…undermining the integrity of its execution process…”
What Willacy’s request represents is not unique - it’s systemic:
A pattern:
Prisoners ask:
→ “What are you going to use to kill me?”Florida responds:
→ “You don’t need to know.”
Courts respond:
You must prove risk
But:
You cannot access the information needed to prove it
That contradiction is the legal tension driving this case.
It is now 1:04pm, on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, as I write this. Chadwick has approximately 5 hours left of life. The buses of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Daytona Beach are already filled in the parking lot, and are en route to Florida State Prison. Father Phil is preparing his eulogy and his words of encouragement for his valiant parishioners who are going to protest the execution and to bear witness to the tragedy happening today.
1:04 PM - The Clock Starts to Matter
By early afternoon, everything is already decided.
The courts have spoken. The filings have been denied. The questions - about drugs, about protocols, about what exactly will happen inside that chamber - remain unanswered.
Somewhere inside Florida State Prison, Chadwick Willacy is now on what they call death watch. Every movement observed. Every minute is accounted for.
The machinery is no longer legal.
It’s procedural.
2:00 PM - The Last Window Narrows
Phones are still active. Lawyers are still reachable.
But this is the quiet phase - the one where hope doesn’t disappear all at once… it thins out.
A last call could come.
A stay. A delay. A signature from a court willing to interrupt the schedule.
But the odds, by now, are nearly gone.
Outside, the world moves normally. Traffic. Lunch. Conversations.
Inside, time is measured differently.
3:00 PM - The Ritual Begins
The state begins its preparations long before the public ever hears a word.
Checklists. Confirmations. Quiet rehearsals of a process that has been repeated enough times to feel routine to those carrying it out.
The execution team assembles.
The chemicals - whatever their origin, whatever their condition - are prepared behind closed doors.
No transparency. No witnesses yet.
Just a system moving forward because nothing has stopped it.
4:00 PM - The Human Hour
This is when it becomes real.
Final visits. Final conversations. The last opportunity to speak without glass, without interruption, without the weight of the clock pressing in from every direction.
No script can hold this moment.
Families try to compress a lifetime into minutes.
Words are chosen carefully - or not at all.
Some things don’t get said.
Some things can’t.
5:00 PM - The Final Turn
The state is ready now.
Witnesses are being gathered. Media alerted. The process moves from private to public - not transparent, but visible.
The line has been crossed.
There are still legal doors, technically speaking.
But they are closing, one by one.
Inside the chamber, everything is in place.
6:00 PM - The Point of No Return
At some point in this hour, the system completes what it has been building toward all day.
There will be an official time.
A statement.
A confirmation.
But the real moment - the one that matters - will happen quietly, behind glass, under fluorescent light, carried out by people whose names the public will never know.
And Then…
The state will call it justice.
The folder containing the paperwork will be closed.
And the questions - about what was used, how it was done, and whether it should have happened at all -
will remain.
Chadwick and his team will have received no answers to their questions. Florida - and, indeed, the whole world - will have received no answers. Because Florida and Ron DeSantis have decreed that we are not entitled to any answers.
This will be Florida’s fifth execution in 2026 following a record 19 executions in the state last year. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.
Willacy’s final appeals were pending before the U.S. Supreme Court as the execution date loomed.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a long line of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each.
Another execution has been scheduled in Florida for later this month. James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, is scheduled to received a lethal injection on April 30.
The secrecy prevails, yet again.
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"Chadwick Willacy did not ask for mercy. He asked for information.
What drugs will you use? Where did they come from? Are they expired?
Who will administer them—and under what protocol?"
The secrecy about drugs is remarkable. In Texas, 2016 saw a lot of litigation related to whether the pentobarbital was expired or not...because it looked like Texas was simply changing the expiry dates on the doses. More recently, where is the pentobarbital coming from? How is it being compounded? Texas Public Radio did some really good work investigating this in 2024.
Thank you for this article.