At 74, he became the oldest person ever executed in Florida’s history. A Marine Corps veteran sentenced to death by a 7–5 jury vote that would be impossible today, Dusty Ray Spencer was put to death on June 25, 2026. Here is the case, the appeals, and the final day.
Dusty Ray Spencer
Executed June 25, 2026 · Florida State Prison, Starke · Florida’s oldest execution on record
Karen Spencer
The victim was Karen Spencer, Dusty Spencer’s wife. The violence that ended her life in 1992 was preceded by documented warnings: in December 1991, Spencer was arrested in Orange County after choking and threatening her, and while jailed he reportedly warned he would “finish what he had started” after his release. Her teenage son, Timothy, witnessed the fatal attack and tried to intervene. Any account of this case has to begin with Karen, and with a son who tried to save his mother.
The crime
According to court records, weeks after his release, Dusty Ray Spencer attacked Karen Spencer outside the family home. He struck her in the head with a brick and slammed her head against the concrete wall of the house. Her son Timothy attempted to intervene; during the struggle the rifle he carried misfired. When Timothy tried to carry his mother to safety, Spencer threatened him with a knife, and the boy ran to a neighbor for help. By the time police arrived, Karen had been stabbed multiple times in the chest, face, and arms, and had died of her injuries. Spencer was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Timeline of the case
Spencer is arrested in Orange County for choking and threatening his wife.
Spencer murders Karen Spencer outside the family home.
Convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
The Florida Supreme Court vacates the death sentence and remands for resentencing.
On remand, without a new jury, the trial court again sentences Spencer to death.
The Florida Supreme Court affirms; Spencer files a federal habeas petition.
The Eleventh Circuit affirms the denial of his habeas claims.
Gov. DeSantis signs Spencer’s death warrant — the tenth of 2026.
Spencer is executed at 6:10 p.m. after the U.S. Supreme Court denies his final petition.
The trial, the resentencing, and the appeals
Spencer was convicted of first-degree murder in 1993 and sentenced to death. On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court vacated that sentence in 1994, finding the trial court had improperly weighed an aggravating factor and improperly rejected a mitigating circumstance, and remanded for resentencing. On remand — and without empaneling a new jury — the trial court again imposed a death sentence in 1996. That feature of the case later drew dissents invoking Hurst v. Florida, the line of decisions concerning a defendant’s right to a jury determination in capital sentencing.
Spencer’s appeals ran for more than three decades. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed his sentence in 2003, and after a federal habeas petition, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the denial of his claims — including allegations of prosecutorial misconduct — in 2010. Later successive post-conviction motions, including challenges to Florida’s lethal-injection protocol and execution-secrecy laws, were denied.
In depth: the 1996 resentencing and the Hurst question
The detail at the heart of Spencer’s case — and the one most often glossed over — is how his death sentence was reimposed. After the Florida Supreme Court vacated his original sentence in 1994, the trial court resentenced him to death in 1996 without empaneling a new jury. The judge re-weighed the aggravating and mitigating factors and again chose death.
Two decades later, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hurst v. Florida (2016) held that Florida’s capital sentencing scheme violated the Sixth Amendment because it let judges, rather than juries, find the facts necessary to impose death. Florida courts then spent years sorting out which older sentences Hurst reached. Spencer’s original jury had recommended death by a bare 7–5 margin — and in dissents in his case, justices argued this was the “quintessential Hurst error”: a death sentence resting on a non-unanimous, judge-driven process that the Constitution, as later interpreted, would not allow. The courts ultimately held Hurst did not entitle him to relief, but the dissents are why many legal observers viewed his execution as resting on a sentence that could not be imposed the same way today.
Why this execution drew opposition
Spencer’s case became a focal point for critics of Florida’s accelerating pace of executions. His supporters — including veterans’ advocates, faith groups, and anti-death-penalty organizations — raised several arguments. He was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran whose service the sentencing court itself recognized as mitigating. He was 74 years old, in poor health with cirrhosis and portal hypertension, and his lawyers argued that applying the lethal-injection protocol to him risked an unconstitutional execution. And his death sentence rested on a 7–5 jury vote — a margin that, under Florida’s current law requiring at least eight jurors, would no longer be sufficient to impose death. The Florida Attorney General’s Office countered that the execution was “long-deserved,” citing the history of the case and the fact that Spencer was resentenced to death after his first sentence was overturned.
The final day
On June 22, 2026, Spencer filed a petition for a writ of certiorari and an application for a stay at the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging the Florida Supreme Court’s decision. The State filed its opposition the next day. Around 4:00 p.m. on the day of the execution, the Court denied the petition without recorded dissent. Spencer woke at 5:30 a.m. and had a last meal of pizza, fries, and a milkshake. He was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. at Florida State Prison. In his final statement, he apologized to Karen’s family and spoke of committing his spirit to God. State officials reported no complications. The execution was Florida’s ninth of 2026 and made Spencer, at 74, the oldest person ever executed in the state.
Case references & citations
Underlined references link directly to the source document.
| Stage | Reference |
|---|---|
| Trial court | Circuit Court, Orange County, Florida · convicted 1993 |
| Direct appeal (resentencing) | Spencer v. State, 645 So. 2d 377 (Fla. 1994) |
| Post-conviction (Fla.) | Spencer v. State, 842 So. 2d 52 (Fla. 2003) |
| Federal habeas (11th Cir.) | Spencer v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corrs., 609 F.3d 1170 (11th Cir. 2010) |
| Later Fla. ruling | Spencer v. State, 259 So. 3d 712 (Fla. 2018) |
| Final petition (SCOTUS) | Cert. & stay denied June 25, 2026 |
Court records & case documents
Direct links to the key opinions and filings in the case:
Sources & further reading
Frequently asked questions
Who was Dusty Ray Spencer?
A 74-year-old Florida death-row inmate and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, executed on June 25, 2026, for the 1992 murder of his wife, Karen Spencer, in Orange County.
Why was his execution historic?
At 74, he became the oldest person ever executed in Florida, based on state records dating to 1924. His was the state’s ninth execution of 2026.
Why did advocates oppose the execution?
They cited his age and poor health, his status as a decorated veteran, and the fact that his death sentence rested on a 7–5 jury vote — a margin that would not be enough to impose death under current Florida law.
How many executions has Florida carried out recently?
Florida executed a record 19 people in 2025 — more than under any governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 — and Spencer was the ninth of 2026, with at least one more scheduled in July.
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