Death Penalty News

If the state of Florida is unable to execute prisoners without shrouding the process in secrecy, it’s another reason that capital punishment should be ended entirely.  State prison officials are asking the Legislature to make confidential any records that “could reasonably lead to the identification of any person or entity participating in an execution,” the Tampa Bay Times-Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau recently reported.  The legislation is aimed at hiding the supply chain behind the mix of drugs used in lethal injections, according to the report. Death penalty opponents would then be prevented from pressuring drug makers into blacklisting the state from buying their products. Secrecy is nothing new for the state of Florida when it comes to capital punishment. State officials have long shielded the death penalty from scrutiny. During my first four years as a reporter for The Sun, I witnessed and wrote about seven executions at Florida State Prison near Starke. The barbarity...

As case nears start of penalty phase, defense team asks for certain evidence to be excluded FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The judge in the Parkland shooting case denied several defense arguments where attorneys ask to declare the death penalty unconstitutional. Broward County Judge Elizabeth Scherer agreed with a state argument that the court did not have authority to overrule the Supreme Court on the issue. On Feb. 14, 2018, Cruz opened fire on students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In October, Cruz pled guilty to killing 17 people in the shooting. By having Cruz plead guilty, the gunman’s defense team is hoping he may avoid the death penalty and instead be sentenced to 17 life sentences in prison. Also, as the case nears the start of the penalty phase, Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz’s defense team asked the judge to exclude evidence related to two search warrants; one related to a Pompano Beach home he once resided in and another to the cell phone used on the day...

Gary Ray Bowles started his eight-month murderous binge in Daytona Beach by killing John Hardy Roberts on March 14, 1994, inside the victim’s beachside home and now he is set to be the 99th death row inmate executed in Florida in modern times. The killing spree began in Daytona Beach. Eventually, in 1994, 6 men were savagely beaten and choked. One was bludgeoned with a discarded toilet. Each man fought for his life, but lost. In every case, the victims had something crammed down their throats — a towel, wads of toilet paper, a fistful of dirt. On Thursday, their killer, Gary Ray Bowles, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. Executions mark the end of some of society’s most heinous killings, but they also elicit objections to the practice of state-sponsored death. Holding the opposing view may become more difficult when it is argued on the behalf of an unrepentant serial murderer like Bowles, but there is still no end to the debate about the death p...

Florida Supreme Court refuses to block death row inmate Gary Ray Bowles' execution. Bowles is currently scheduled to be executed on August 22, 2019. TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected appeals by Death Row inmate Gary Ray Bowles, who is scheduled to be executed next week for the 1994 murder of a Jacksonville man who was hit in the head with a concrete block and strangled. Justices unanimously denied a request by Bowles’ attorneys for a stay of the Aug. 22 execution.  The attorneys argued in a brief last month that the Supreme Court should order a hearing about whether Bowles is intellectually disabled and, as a result, should be shielded from execution. But the Supreme Court said Bowles had failed to make a “timely” intellectual disability claim because he did not raise the issue until 2017. “Bowles waited until October 19, 2017 to raise an intellectual disability claim for the first time,” the court’s 10-page main opinion said. “...

More than 100 inmates condemned to death could face a major upheaval, as a revamped Florida Supreme Court ponders whether to undo a 2016 ruling that allowed nearly half of the state’s Death Row prisoners to have their death sentences revisited. With a conservative bloc of justices led by Chief Justice Charles Canady now in the majority, the court has begun the process of reconsidering whether changes to Florida’s death penalty-sentencing system should continue being applied retroactively to cases dating to 2002. The court’s reopening of the retroactivity issue, which came in an April 24 order, sent shockwaves through the state’s death penalty legal community. “This is judicial activism. The right has always complained about judicial activism and not wanting judicial activist judges. But when you don’t respect precedent, that really is the judicial activism,” Marty McClain, a lawyer who has represented hundreds of defendants in death-penalty cases, told The News Service o...

Associated Press -- State lawmakers are circulating bipartisan legislation to restore capital punishment in Delaware. The legislation, expected to be introduced soon, specifies that the death penalty could not be imposed unless a jury, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, finds at least one aggravating circumstance that makes a crime eligible for capital punishment. Delaware’s Supreme Court declared the state’s death penalty law unconstitutional in 2016 because it allowed judges too much discretion and did not require that a jury find unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant deserves execution.  That ruling came after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida’s similar death sentencing law. Democratic Gov. John Carney said Tuesday that he might sign a bill allowing capital punishment only if it was restricted to killers of law enforcement officials. Source: The Associated Press, Staff, May 15, 2019 ⚑ | Report an error, an omission,...

Florida lawmakers may never take the death penalty off the books, but stronger forces are steadily eroding this inhumane, outdated tool of injustice. Court rulings, subsequent changes to law and waning public support have significantly suppressed the number of death sentences sought and handed down in state courts. While Florida should have abolished the death penalty long ago, its descent into obsolescence may be the next best thing. Florida has executed 96 people since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The system ground to a halt in 2016 with another landmark ruling that invalidated Florida’s long-standing, convoluted scheme for imposing death sentences. Previously, juries could recommend putting a defendant to death by a simple majority, with the ultimate decision left up to the judge. In Hurst v. Florida, the Supreme Court found that process was unconstitutional because it gave too much power to judges. The Legislature responded by amending state l...

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals by 10 Death Row inmates, including a man scheduled to be executed Feb. 22 in the 1993 slaying of a University of West Florida student. The Supreme Court’s release of 10 nearly identical rulings at the same time was unusual.  But each of the cases involved inmates challenging their death sentences because juries did not unanimously recommend execution. The inmates included Eric Scott Branch, who was scheduled Friday by Gov. Rick Scott to be executed Feb. 22. The other inmates were Pressley Bernard Alston in a Duval County case; Kayle Barrington Bates in a Bay County case; Donald Bradley in a Clay County case; Marvin Burnett Jones in a Duval County case; Daniel Jon Peterka in an Okaloosa County case; Harry Franklin Phillips in a Miami-Dade County case; Jason Demetrius Stephens in a Duval County case; Ernest D. Suggs in a Walton County case; and Frank A. Walls in an Okaloosa County case. The appe...

Florida executes man convicted of 2 killings decades ago Florida executed an inmate Thursday who was convicted of killing two people after a night of drinking decades ago. Michael Lambrix, 57, died by lethal injection at 10:10 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Bradford County. For his final words, Lambrix said, "I wish to say the Lord's Prayer." He recited the words, ending on the line "deliver us from evil," his voice breaking slightly at times. When he finished and the drug cocktail began flowing through his veins, Lambrix's chest heaved and his lips fluttered. This continues for about five minutes, until his lips and eyelids turned silver-blue and he lay motionless. A doctor checked his chest with a stethoscope and shined a light in both of his eyes before pronouncing him dead. Corrections spokeswoman Michelle Glady said Bryant's sister was the only victims' family member to attend and she did not wish to speak with reporters ...