Melvin Trotter was executed by lethal injection at 6:15 p.m. (11:15 p.m. GMT), after spending 40 years on death row for the 1987 stabbing murder of a grocery store owner.

A death row inmate was executed Tuesday night in Florida for a crime dating back to 1986, for the fourth time this year in the United States and the second in that state.

Melvin Trotter was executed by lethal injection at 6:15 p.m. (11:15 p.m. GMT), state prison officials announced. The 65-year-old man was convicted in 1987 of the fatal stabbing of a 70-year-old grocery store owner during an armed robbery in June 1986. He had been on death row for nearly 40 years. Last year, 19 people were executed in Florida, more than in any other U.S. state.

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who has the ultimate responsibility to sign the execution order for death row inmates, has overseen more executions than any other Florida governor since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976.

Two more executions are currently scheduled in Florida, on March 3 and 17, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). Executions are also planned for March in Texas (the 11th) and Alabama (the 12th) for a 75-year-old death row inmate who uses a wheelchair. In total, 47 death row inmates were executed in the United States last year, the highest number since 2009 (52).

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states. Three others, California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, observe a moratorium on executions by order of the governor.