Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant on Friday, October 30, for Ricardo Gonzalez, 56, who was convicted of murdering a North Miami police officer during a bank robbery more than 30 years ago. Barring successful appeals, Gonzalez is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection starting at noon on Tuesday, December 1, 2026, at Florida State Prison in Raiford, about 45 miles southwest of Jacksonville.

If the execution is carried out, Gonzalez will be the 21st person put to death in Florida in 2026, surpassing the state's latest record number of executions — 19, set in 2025 — according to USA Today Network reporting carried by Pembroke Pines News. The warrant comes 11 days after the state executed William Reaves Jr. for the 1986 murder of Deputy Richard Raczkoski, and it was signed in the governor's final months in office, in a year in which Florida has moved faster on executions than any other state.

The 1992 robbery that killed Officer Steven Bauer

On January 3, 1992, the Kislak National Bank in North Miami was robbed. Officer Steven Bauer, a North Miami police officer working an off-duty job at the bank, tried to stop the suspects and was shot and killed. The court determined that Gonzalez was the one who fired the fatal bullet. Gonzalez, then 21, was a former boxer with no prior record before plotting to rob the bank, according to the reporting; he later confessed that he and four other men — Leonardo Franqui, Pablo San Martin, Fernando Fernandez and Pablo Abreu — had planned the robbery over the 10 days before January 3, 1992.

Gonzalez was stopped by police on January 18, 1992, after leaving his residence, the court record in Gonzalez v. State reflects. Of the men who planned the robbery with him, Leonardo Franqui was also sentenced to death and remains on Florida's death row.

Conviction and death sentence

Gonzalez was found guilty of first-degree murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault, two counts of grand theft and two counts of burglary, and he was sentenced to death for Officer Bauer's murder. The trial court found six aggravating factors, merged into three: prior violent felonies based on the contemporaneous convictions for armed robbery and aggravated assault; a murder committed during a robbery and for financial gain; and a murder committed to avoid a lawful arrest, against a law enforcement officer performing his duties, and to hinder enforcement of the laws. His conviction and sentence were later considered by the Florida Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. State, 990 So. 2d 1017 (Fla. 2008).

Florida's record pace in 2026

Gonzalez is not next in line. Two executions are scheduled before his: Jesse Guardado, sentenced to death for the 2004 stabbing and beating death of 75-year-old community activist Jackie Malone, is set for November 5, and Thomas Overton, sentenced to death for the 1991 murders of Susan and Michael MacIvoy in the Florida Keys, is set for November 19. If those dates hold and Gonzalez's follows, Florida will pass its own 2025 record of 19 executions — a pace Governor DeSantis has defended in the past as bringing justice to victims' families who have waited decades.

What happens next

Shortly after the governor issued the warrant, the Florida Supreme Court issued its standard scheduling order for warrant-related litigation, the Florida Death Penalty tracking project reported. Under that schedule, circuit court proceedings close on November 13 at 11:00 a.m., after which the litigation moves to the state supreme court. Only a successful appeal, a court stay or executive action would stop the December 1 execution; the warrant itself states the sentence is otherwise to be carried out at noon that day at Florida State Prison in Raiford, by lethal injection — the method Florida uses, a three-drug process described by the Department of Corrections in earlier execution reporting.