Overview
- Florida authorities said the sentence was carried out Thursday evening at Florida State Prison using the state’s three-drug protocol of a sedative, a paralytic and a heart-stopping drug.
- Spencer was convicted in the early 1990s of killing his wife after court records described a long pattern of domestic violence that included choking, beatings and the fatal stabbing in 1992.
- The Florida Supreme Court had recently denied his appeals and his lawyers raised Eighth Amendment arguments about age and health, while a final petition was pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Local outlets and court records reported Spencer as the oldest inmate sentenced to die in modern Florida history and his lawyers said he suffered from cirrhosis and portal hypertension.
- The execution marks Florida’s ninth this year following a record 19 in 2025 and continues a wave of state capital activity that has prompted legal and ethical scrutiny of lethal-injection practices.