As Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the state’s 22nd death warrant of the year, a pastor who counsels people on death row is asking the next governor, Republican Gov.-elect Byron Donalds, for a six-month moratorium on all state-sanctioned executions.

Rev. Jeff Hood, a 42-year-old pastor based out of Little Rock, Arkansas, has been accompanying people on death row during their last moments in the execution chamber for fifteen years. Hood is a spiritual advisor to inmates all over the country, but has been busier than usual in Florida — a state that has put a record-breaking 38 people to death since 2025, with more scheduled this year, under the guidance of DeSantis.

Hood sent a letter to Donalds Tuesday afternoon and is holding a press conference Wednesday morning with organizers from his nonprofit, The Execution Intervention Project. In the letter, Hood emphasizes the damaging emotional toll executions take on corrections officers, medical examiners and victims’ families.

“I want people to know that these executions linger,” said Hood, who has accompanied three inmates in Florida to the death chambers thus far. “You’re talking about something that lingers in the hearts and souls of people who are a part of these moments.”

Hood said that he understands that Donalds has already come out in firm support of the Death Penalty, and realizes it may never be fully abolished in Florida. But, Hood said he believes now is the best opportunity to appeal to the governor-elect for “a pause long enough to examine what Florida is doing.”

“Nobody chose this pace. No legislature voted for it. No commission studied it. No voter was asked whether Florida should execute at this rate,” Hood wrote. “One man signed warrants faster than any governor before him and the state was forced to fall into step behind him.”

What has Donalds said about the death penalty?

Donalds made history last week as he became Florida’s first Black governor, defeating his opponent, Democrat David Jolly. Speaking with reporters moments after his win, Donalds signaled a new era of civil leadership, priding himself as someone who is “very open” to speaking with those who disagree with him, according to reporting from the Tampa Bay Times. Donalds told reporters that he strives to focus on “the basic issues that matter to all people,” even those who voted against him. Some are interpreting those comments as a departure from the divisive culture wars associated with the DeSantis administration for the past eight years.

“I think that the DeSantis administration has assumed that cruelty is en vogue, and it seems to me that Governor Donalds has the potential to see what is happening in the country, to see what is happening in Florida, and help people to realize that cruelty is simply that — cruel, and one does not have to participate in cruelty in order to bring about a government that holds its citizens accountable,” Hood said.

When asked about the six-month pause, a spokesman for Donalds told the Miami Herald the Governor-elect “is a staunch supporter of the death penalty and will govern as such.”

Earlier this year, Donalds told the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald that as governor, he would “ensure violent criminals swiftly face the full weight of justice.”

“This is not California,” Donalds said. “Chaos will not run our streets, and criminals will not run our communities. In Florida, we don’t play that game. Harm a Floridian, and you will face the consequences.”

‘Not a normal event’

Hood is not the only person pushing for a pause on executions in Florida.

On Thursday, a group of anti-death-penalty advocates — including some who have been on Florida’s Death Row themselves — are gathering in Tallahassee to share their stories of exoneration and ask Donalds to stop executions and examine laws that contribute to wrongful convictions, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.

The anti-death penalty actions this week come a week after the execution of Jesse Guardado, the state’s 19th execution of 2026, tying Florida’s record last year, and a week before the execution of Thomas Mitchell Overton, a survivor of Florida’s infamous Dozier School for Boys.

Overton, who was convicted for the 1991 murders of Michael and Susan “Missy” MacIvor in Monroe County, has maintained his innocence for more than three decades, according to the advocacy group Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, one of the organizers of Thursday’s event at the state capitol.

In addition to the death penalty advocates, Catholic groups, including the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, have been asking the state to halt executions for decades, arguing that Florida’s “alarming” rate of executions not only goes against the moral teachings of the church, but is impractical to society. Miami’s own Catholic leader, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, told the Miami Herald earlier this year that the executions “bring no real closure to the families of the victims and represent vengeance rather than justice.”

On Tuesday, DeSantis signed a warrant for Willie Seth Crain — who Hood also counsels — which is slated to be the 22nd execution of the year.

In his letter to Donalds, Hood said he is not blind to the heinous crimes the inmates have been convicted of and that he does not “forget the people they killed.”

“I am not writing to tell you they are innocent. Most of them did what the state says they did. Some of them committed crimes as horrible as anything you could imagine,” said Hood, who has argued that a life sentence without parole is a more difficult, yet better fitting punishment for many of the convicted violent criminals.

Hood said he worries that Florida’s normalization of executions will have a negative impact on society.

“These executions are treated like they’re normal, and they’re not,” Hood said.

“What I think is very important for Byron Donalds to understand is that it’s not normal for anybody that participates, and it never will be normal. The taking of human life is not a normal event, and it never should be,” Hood said.

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