Florida State Government

Florida is scheduled to execute 54-year-old Michael Lee King by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 2008 abduction, rape and murder of 21-year-old mother Denise Amber Lee in North Port. King was sentenced to death in 2009 after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder, sexual battery and kidnapping; evidence at trial included Lee’s desperate 911 call from King’s cellphone while bound in his car and physical evidence recovered from his home and vehicle. The Florida Supreme Court last week rejected his latest appeals, which alleged mismanagement of the state’s death penalty protocols and due-process violations over access to records, and the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to intervene. Lee’s killing spurred the unanimously passed Denise Amber Lee Act, which tightened training standards for 911 operators and led to the creation of a national foundation that still advocates for emergency-communications reforms. King’s execution would be Florida’s fourth scheduled in 2026 following a record 19 executions in 2025 under Gov. Ron DeSantis, and comes as Florida leads the nation in death sentences carried out while two more executions are already set for March 31 and April 21, keeping capital punishment practices in the state under renewed scrutiny.