After courts rejected arguments that he should not be executed because of his age, 72-year-old Samuel Smithers was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison in the 1996 murders of two women in Hillsborough County.

Smithers, who was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m., was the 14th Florida inmate executed this year, adding to a modern-era record for a year. Gov. Ron DeSantis also has signed death warrants for two more inmates to be put to death.

Tuesday’s execution came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a final appeal. Smithers’ attorneys argued that executing the senior citizen would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Florida Department of Corrections

Smithers was convicted of murdering Denise Roach an

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