Florida | DeSantis delays execution of Palm Beach County killer Duane Owen

Pending results from a full psychological evaluation, Palm Beach County murdered Duane Owen might avoid his death penalty. The convicted murderer has tried to appeal before, but has not succeeded.

WEST PALM BEACH — Duane Owen, 62, fatally stabbed a Delray Beach babysitter and battered a single Boca Raton mom to death nearly 40 years ago. As of yesterday, Owen may no longer face a death sentence, pending psychiatric evaluation.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed Owen's death warrant on May 16. He would have been the fourth person to receive the death penalty in Florida this year.

Owen was sentenced to the death penalty in 1986

In 1985, a jury found Owen guilty of stabbing and killing Karen Slattery, a Delray Beach babysitter who was looking after two children when Owen killed her. A judge gave Owen another death sentence just a year later, in 1986, for breaking into the Boca Raton home of Georgianna Worden and beating her to death with a hammer.

In 1999, Owen claimed he was insane

Owen sat for a new trial in 1999, claiming that he was insane at the time of the killings and was looking for hormones to help him transition into a woman the night he killed Slattery. He was sentenced to death again at the conclusion of his 1999 trial.

Owen appealed the verdict, claiming his troubled childhood wasn't rightfully represented during the trial. The troubled childhood in question included an alcoholic mother, who passed away when Owen was 11 years old, his own alcohol and drug use since the age of 9 and a father who took his own life when Owen was 13.

This isn't Owen's first try at nullifying his death sentence

Owen has filed a series of appeals seeking to change his sentencing, but none have succeeded. Owen was sentenced to die by lethal injection in less than a month, on June 15.

Yesterday, DeSantis issued an executive order to pause Owen's execution until he's had a thorough psychiatric evaluation, at the request of his lawyers, who say that Owen was found to meet the criteria of insanity by a neuropsychologist's recent evaluation.

The executive order released by DeSantis in response to Owen's most recent attempt to appeal his execution states that although the governor claims the allegations of Owen's mental health are not sufficient to claim insanity. But because his "solemn duty to execute a duly imposed sentence of death requires the exercise of utmost caution," DeSantis appointed three psychiatrists to assess Owen's mental state.

Source: palmbeachpost.com, Lianna Norman Staff, May 23, 2023

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