Florida lifts stay of execution for Marshall Lee Gore

Marshall Lee Gore

A federal appeals court lifted the stay of execution for a former escort service owner convicted in the slayings of 2 Florida women.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay on Thursday for Marshall Lee Gore. Gov. Rick Scott today set Gore's execution for July 10 at 6 p.m. Gore, 49, had been scheduled to die at the Florida State Prison in Starke Monday evening for the 1988 slaying of Robyn Novick, a 30-year-old exotic dancer. But the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals approved a motion filed by Gore's attorney less than 2 hours before he was to have received a lethal injection.

In his emergency motion, attorney Todd Scher argued Gore's execution would violate the Eighth Amendment, which forbids the state from carrying out a death sentence against a prisoner who is insane.

Gore's attorneys have argued before that he is mentally ill. One previous lawyer claimed Gore was "mentally deranged" and not responsible for his actions. But several judges concluded he was using a claim of mental illness to manipulate the judicial process.

When asked by a judge in the Novick case if he felt competent to proceed he replied, "I'm absolutely competent. I'm absolutely lucid." He had frequent verbal outbursts during the trial, laughed out loud and even howled.

A panel of doctors appointed by Gov. Rick Scott concluded in May that Gore was mentally competent to be executed.

In addition to Novick, Gore also was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1988 slaying of Susan Roark. Novick's body was found in a rural part of Miami-Dade County and Roark's body a few months later in Columbia County in northern Florida.

Gore initially denied knowing any of the women, but later testified they worked for him at an escort service.

Florida had 2 executions earlier this month: William Van Poyck was put to death on June 12 for the 1987 murder of a prison guard during a botched attempt to free another inmate. On May 29, the state executed Elmer Carroll for the 1990 rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl.

Source: Associated Press, June 29, 2013

Saudi Arabia executes two Bangladeshis over 'immoral act' inside mosque

Saudi Arabia has carried out the death penalty on two Bangladeshi nationals in Mecca. The country's Interior Ministry announced this in a statement on Wednesday. According to the report, they were sentenced over allegations of involvement in immoral acts inside a mosque in Mecca. The information was reported by Ajel News, citing the Saudi Interior Ministry's statement. The two Bangladeshis executed were a man and a woman, Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Sithi Akhter. The “immoral acts” referred to illicit heterosexual intercourse, not homosexual activity.

Florida executes James Robertson

STARKE, Fla. — A Florida prisoner who said he killed his cellmate specifically to get on death row was executed Tuesday, nearly 18 years after the attack. James Robertson, 63, declined to offer any last words before receiving a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later. It was a stark contrast to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee two weeks ago, where she was rushed to the hospital after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Florida | Former firefighter, police officer sentenced to death in Fort Pierce killing

Otto Lenke, a Sebastian resident and former Indian River County firefighter/paramedic, as well as a former Melbourne police officer, was convicted in May 2026 of first-degree murder with a firearm and first-degree arson for the February 2021 killing of Richard Benson, owner of Fast Frank’s Cycle Concepts in Fort Pierce. SEBASTIAN—A Nineteen Judicial Circuit judge on Tuesday sentenced former Indian River County firefighter and Melbourne police officer Otto Lenke of Sebastian to death for the 2021 killing of a Fort Pierce motorcycle shop owner.

Christa Pike's Survival Wasn't a Miracle. That's What Should Scare Us.

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

Florida | William Reaves set to be executed on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m.

With his execution date looming, convicted killer William Reaves will soon be moved from Raiford's Union Correctional Institution to a death watch cell in nearby Florida State Prison, a maximum-security complex also known as "The Rock." Reaves, 77, a former Gifford resident in Indian River County who’s been on death row for 38 years, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. His execution will fulfill a sentence of death imposed for the 1986 fatal shooting of Indian River County Sheriff’s Cpl. Richard “Raz” Raczkoski outside a Zippy Mart store on State Road 60 west of Vero Beach.

Florida Set to Execute Man Who Said He Killed to Reach Death Row, Challenging Misconception that Death Penalty Deters Crime

Florida is scheduled to execute James Robertson at noon on Tuesday, October 13, at Florida State Prison. His execution remains scheduled despite the withdrawal of William Lee Thompson’s death warrant, which had called for a 2nd execution that evening. If completed, this will be Florida’s 17th execution of 2026. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) and partners will be holding a series of vigils and demonstrations across the state.

Buffalo Tops shooter files last-minute bid to avoid death penalty

Payton Gendron, who is already serving life without parole for killing 10 Black people in a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022, is asking a federal judge to throw out the case that could send him to death row. Defense attorneys filed the motion Monday — a day before jury selection was scheduled to begin — seeking to dismiss Gendron’s federal indictment. They argued that Black residents are underrepresented in the jury pool for New York’s Western District, according to WIVB and WKBW.

Christa Pike: 4 Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next. Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday. She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time.

Tennessee | Christa Pike’s lawyer says she has not regained consciousness since her failed execution

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday. Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system. When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

USA | Firing squad execution to be livestreamed, Pentagon says

The public will be able to watch the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said. A Defense Department official told the BBC the execution of Nidal Hasan, who shot dead 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, would be livestreamed. It is believed it would be the first public execution in the US in almost a century. The decision to livestream it is "unprecedented in the modern era" and "on uncertain legal terrain", said John Mills, a lawyer who works with inmates sentenced to death.

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