Governor Ron DeSantis has overseen a historic run of executions in his state. Samuel Jason Derrick, 59, may be next

Shawn Derrick’s first memories of his father aren’t about the man himself, but the trials of visiting him. “I remember having to go through a strip search when I was still in diapers at the state prison,” he says. “I have very early memories of running around the visiting park with my dad and playing tag. He still does it with my girls.”

The reality of why his father, Samuel Jason Derrick, who goes by his middle name, is incarcerated at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida, wasn’t clear to Shawn until he was in grade school. “All the other kids were talking about their parents: ‘What does your dad do? What does your mom do?’ I told my teacher that my dad was in prison,” says Shawn, now 39. “My mother had told me that my dad wrecked a car, and that he was in prison forever.…