Skip to main content

Florida to execute first prisoner of 2025 this week

James D. Ford
A man's fate hangs in the balance after decades on death row. The complexities of capital punishment in Florida are revealed.

James D. Ford spent nearly every moment of the last 25 years in a six-foot by nine-foot cell on Florida’s Death Row. From the moment a judge in Charlotte County in southwest Florida handed down his death sentence in 1999, Ford’s only option was to wait.

He waited as his lawyers unsuccessfully submitted appeal after appeal to Florida’s higher courts. He waited for rulings on motions meant to turn his death sentences into lifetime confinement. After his appeals lapsed and his sentence stood, he waited for his death warrant.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Ford’s execution order earlier this year and set his execution for Thursday. His attorneys have challenged long-standing federal and state precedents in attempts to avoid his death.

‘A gruesome discovery’


On a warm Monday in April, employees at the South Florida Sod Farm were searching the property’s 7,000 acres for Greg Malnory. Malnory, who had joined the staff a few months prior, went fishing on the farm with his wife and daughter a day earlier and hadn’t shown up to work Monday morning.

General manager Raymond Caruthers was called to a reservoir on the south side of the farm after lunch, he told lawyers in 1998. Three farm employees made what Judge Cynthia Ellis described as “a gruesome discovery”: Greg and Kim Malnory were found murdered next to Greg’s truck, and their toddler, Maranda, was strapped – alive – in a car seat inside.

The sentencing order said Greg Malnory, 25, had been shot in the head and beaten, and his throat had been slit. Kim Malnory, 26, had been beaten, sexually assaulted and shot with a rifle.

The couple’s daughter, Maranda, just shy of her second birthday, had been left alone for at least 18 hours. She was covered in her mother’s blood and mosquito bites. Ellis said Maranda’s survival could “only be the product of divine intervention.”

Living in Port Charlotte, and now 29, Maranda said she preferred not to discuss her parents’ murders.

“With everything going on, these two have been on my mind a lot lately,” she wrote last week on social media, with a photograph of her parents’ graves. “I make you proud every day, and I keep a picture of the three of us on my desk! I remind myself every day that I do it for you both. The last month has been the hardest; no one ever prepares you for it. As we get closer please be patient with me, I promise I’m not ignoring anyone I’m literally trying to survive.”

Police focused on Ford nearly immediately. He was the last person to see the Malnorys alive when he went fishing with them Sunday, and pieces of Ford’s rifle, ‘Old Betsy,’ were found scattered at the crime scene.

After 11 days of trial, a jury voted 11-1 to recommend a death sentence for Ford. Ellis agreed, sentencing Ford to death for the “heinous, atrocious and cruel” murders.

Florida’s death penalty since 1999 


The jury in Ford’s case recommended the death penalty for both murders, but the judge made the final sentencing decision. Stacy Biggart, a legal skills professor at the University of Florida, said judges had held the final verdict for decades.

Judges “almost always” followed the jury’s advisory verdict, but they were ultimately responsible for finding the aggravating factors that merited a death sentence, like prior violent felonies.

The 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Hurst v. Florida upended the process, finding that the scheme violated defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to a trial by a jury.

“The ruling said that the jury has to find the facts necessary to impose the death penalty,” Biggart said. “The default sentence without aggravators is life. After Hurst, the jury had to find the aggravators.”

The Hurst decision prompted a “flurry of litigation” in death penalty cases around the state. Biggart joined Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, the office that represents death row inmates in post-conviction appeals, less than one month after the ruling.

“There were arguments that the death penalty was unconstitutional, that the ruling should be retroactive to all death penalty cases in Florida,” she said. “The Florida Supreme Court had to decide how to apply Hurst.”

The Florida Supreme Court made its decision in October 2016, requiring a unanimous death sentence and allowing certain death penalty cases to be reopened for litigation. The court only made its verdict retroactive to June 24, 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled similarly in an Arizona case.

Ford’s death penalty case was finalized in May 2002 – less than one month before the court’s cutoff.

“It’s not fair,” Biggart said. “If it was unconstitutional on June 24, 2002, it was unconstitutional before then.”

The Florida Legislature passed a bill mandating unanimous death penalty verdicts in March 2017. The law was in place until 2023, months after a divided jury sentenced Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz to life.

“Society doesn’t like the fact that he got life,” Biggart said, “so we changed the law to make sure people like him could get what they deserve.”

The amended death penalty statute, which became law in April 2023, requires only eight of a jury’s 12 members to impose the death penalty. Florida and Alabama are the only states that allow a nonunanimous death penalty.

DeSantis signed a bill in 2023 that would allow the death penalty in sexual battery cases with a victim under 12 years old, despite U.S. Supreme Court rulings that the death penalty cannot be imposed in cases where the victim didn’t die.

Additionally, the Florida Legislature’s recent immigration bill, known as the TRUMP Act, would require the death penalty for an “unauthorized alien” who commits a capital crime. The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that mandatory death sentences are unconstitutional.

Recent Florida death penalty laws are unconstitutional, Biggart said, which may be part of the reason they are passed.

“If these laws are passed and challenged, courts might revisit death penalty laws,” she said. “Florida citizens seem to like the death penalty. I think the death penalty in Florida is going to thrive.”

Ford’s final appeals 


The last weeks of Ford’s 20 years of appeals have seen petitions from outside organizations and motions from his lawyers urging a stay in his execution.

Maria DeLiberato, the executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the state has the opportunity to “bring justice without causing more violence” in Ford’s case.

“Like many people on death row, he didn’t get a death sentence with a happy, healthy childhood,” she said. “Mercy is always appropriate, especially for someone who lives a peaceful life and has family who cares for him.”

In motions submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on Sunday, Ford’s lawyers, Ali Shakoor and Adrienne Shepherd, argued that the 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons justified pausing his execution.

His lawyers did not respond to emails or phone messages for a week. Gerod Hooper, the chief assistant at Capital Collateral Regional Counsel-Middle, said the basis of the appeal was Ford’s mental age.

He said the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited executions for people who are mentally or chronologically under 18 but only for conditions that “prevent the brain from developing.”

“Mr. Ford … is mentally around 12 years old, but because his deficiency didn’t happen until after he was 18, he can get executed,” Hooper said. “Our position is that (it) is illogical. Mental deficiency should be applicable if it existed at the time of the crime.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has the final say on Ford’s execution. He is set to be executed Thursday evening.

Source: floridapolitics.com, Bea Lunardini, February 13, 2025

_____________________________________________________________________








"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde



Most viewed (Last 7 days)

China | Singer-actor Zhang Yiyang was executed in 2024 for murder of teenage girlfriend, court confirms

China singer-actor Zhang Yiyang was executed in 2024 for murder of teenage girlfriend, court confirms Chinese singer-actor Zhang Yiyang was sentenced to death by firing squad in December 2024 for the murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend in 2022, a recent investigation report from a Chinese court has confirmed. Zhang is said to be the first Chinese entertainer to be given the death penalty. The report from the Intermediate People's Court of Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, which has circulated in Chinese media, stated that Zhang and his then-girlfriend started dating in September 2021. But when she would propose to break up, Zhang would refuse and often threaten her with suicide.

Inside Japan's secretive execution jails where death row inmates are given minutes notice before facing the noose

From the outside, the Tokyo Detention House looks much like the other tall, austere buildings native to Katsushika City, but its drab facade and tree-lined grounds conceal a far more sinister reality. It is here that Japan's most deplorable criminals are plucked from their cells and hanged underneath fluorescent lights in a cold, bare wood-panelled room.  There is a chillingly theatrical element to how the condemned are executed in the East Asian country - the only member of the G7 besides the US that still metes out capital punishment.  Shackled prisoners are led past a small gold statue of Kannon, a Buddhist figure associated with compassion, as they enter their sterile execution chamber. 

Woman who watched nearly 300 executions explained moment she had to give it up

Michelle Lyons' job wasn't for the fainthearted A woman who watched nearly 300 death row executions take place over 12 years opened up about how her macabre career impacted her life. For more than a decade, it was part of Michelle Lyons' job description to observe the final moments of hundreds of prisoners in the US state of Texas. She says the process never 'become mundane or normal', although she did become acclimatized to it - as she went on to watch so many executions that she 'can't recall' a lot of them.

Japan executes 'Twitter killer' who murdered nine in 2017

TOKYO — Japan on Friday executed a man dubbed the "Twitter killer" who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online, in the nation's first enactment of the death penalty since 2022. Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, was hanged for killing his young victims, all but one of whom were women, after contacting them on the social media platform now called X. He had targeted users who posted about taking their own lives, telling them he could help them in their plans, or even die alongside them. Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said Shiraishi's crimes, carried out in 2017, included "robbery, rape, murder... destruction of a corpse and abandonment of a corpse".

Texas death row prisoner dies after more than 30 years behind bars

A Houston-area man convicted of killing his wife died this week after more than 3 decades on death row, marking the 2nd condemned prisoner to die behind bars in the past month.  Prison officials confirmed that William "Billy the Kid" Mason was taken to the hospital on Wednesday and died of cardiac arrest Friday morning.  The 71-year-old was originally sent to death row in 1992, after prosecutors said he'd kidnapped his wife and beaten her to death under a bridge because she was playing the radio too loudly. According to court records, her body was found several days later under some logs near the San Jacinto River.

Inside a Mississippi execution: Clarion Ledger reporter recounts what it was like

The visitation center at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman has no windows, just fluorescent lighting, plastic chairs and tables in a cafeteria-style room. I could technically step outside, but only through a single entrance and doing so meant going through the full security screening all over again — it didn’t feel worth it. A few friendly prison staff walked around, quietly watching us. The Wi-Fi cut in and out. All the while, I returned to the thought I was there to watch someone die.

Tennessee death row inmate makes last-ditch effort to prevent Aug. 5 execution

Attorneys for a Tennessee death row inmate have launched a last-ditch effort to prevent his Aug. 5 execution. In Nashville 's Chancery Court, they are asking a judge to require the Tennessee Department of Correction to deactivate an implanted defibrillation device similar to a pacemaker in the moments before Byron Black 's execution. If the judge rules in their favor, such an order could potentially delay the execution until the state finds someone willing to do the deactivation.

Louisiana | Mother calls for man exonerated of raping and murdering her child to go free

Wrongful convictions by 2 discredited Mississippi experts tops at least 10. A victim’s family in Louisiana is now speaking out.  Prosecutors fighting the release of death row inmate Jimmie Duncan after a judge found him “factually innocent” of raping and murdering 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux are “not speaking for Haley’s family,” her mother says.  Speaking publicly for the 1st time, Allison Layton Statham called for Duncan to go free in a July 22 bail hearing. “This innocent man is on death row,” she told Mississippi Today. “Justice needs to be done.”  In April, a judge threw out Duncan’s conviction, questioning their conclusions and citing the failures of his court-appointed counsel.

Utah corrections officials say they’ll be ready to execute Ralph Menzies by firing squad

It’s been less than a year since Utah’s last execution — but more than 15 years since its last firing squad. State officials say they will ‘do it right,’ with date set for Sept. 5 Utah Department of Corrections officials say they’ll be ready to carry out the upcoming execution of death row inmate Ralph Menzies that’s currently scheduled to take place shortly after midnight on Sept. 5. A Utah judge signed Menzies’ death warrant last week , setting the date for the 67-year-old man with dementia to die by firing squad. That is, barring any other legal hurdles.

10 Arkansas death row inmates sue to stop nitrogen gas executions, 1 asks to be next

Scotty Gardner wants out of “his cave” at the Varner SuperMax Prison south of Grady, Arkansas. In messages with USA TODAY, he described the conditions of his cell as, “a walk-in closet with a shower, toilet, a sink and drain in the floor that bugs crawl in and out constantly.” He also mentioned recurring issues with black mold and toilets that constantly overflow. To get out, Gardner is asking the state to be the first inmate executed since 2017.