STARKE, Florida — A man convicted of raping and killing a woman near a central Florida pub is expected to be killed on Tuesday.

Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, is due to be executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke unless he is granted a last-day reprieve. He was found guilty in the May 1994 murder of Michelle McGrath.

Gudinas would be the seventh person executed in Florida this year, with the eighth planned for next month. In 2023, the state executed six people, compared to only one last year.

This year, 23 persons have been executed in the United States, and the number of executions slated for 2025 is expected to be the highest since 2015.

Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, with Texas and South Carolina tied for second with four each. Alabama has executed three persons, Oklahoma two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, and Tennessee one each. Mississippi will join the other states on Wednesday with its first execution since 2022.

McGrath was last seen at Barbarella’s just before 3 a.m. on May 24, 1994. Several hours later, her body was discovered in an alley next to a neighbouring school, with signs of severe violence and sexual assault.

Gudinas had gone to the same pub with pals the night before, but they all later claimed that they had departed without him. A school employee who discovered McGrath’s death later identified Gudinas as a man who had fled the scene shortly before. Another woman identified Gudinas as the individual who chased her to her car the night before and threatened to assault her.

Gudinas was convicted and condemned to death in 1995.

Attorneys representing Gudinas have filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court.

The lawyers claim in their state brief that proof of “lifelong mental illnesses” exempts Gudinas from the death penalty. Last Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court refused the appeals, holding that the case law protecting intellectually handicapped people from execution does not apply to people with other types of mental illness or brain injury.

Meanwhile, a federal lawsuit contends that the Florida governor’s unrestricted authority to sign death warrants violates death row inmates’ constitutional rights to due process and has resulted in an arbitrary process for deciding who lives and who dies. The United States Supreme Court has not yet issued its verdict.