STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man who killed an 8-year-old woman and her grandmother on an evening by which he drank closely and used medicine is ready to be executed Thursday.
Edward James, 63, is scheduled to obtain a deadly injection beginning at 6 p.m. at Florida State Jail exterior Starke underneath a dying warrant signed in February by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Barring a last-minute reprieve, the execution is to be the second this yr in Florida, which is planning a 3rd in April.
Three different executions had been scheduled this week round the US: Louisiana put a person to dying Tuesday utilizing nitrogen gasoline for the primary time because it resumed executions after a 15-year hiatus. Arizona on Wednesday lethally injected a person who had kidnapped and murdered his girlfriend’s ex-husband. One other deadly injection is deliberate Thursday in Oklahoma.
James drew the dying penalty for the Sept. 19, 1993, killings of 8-year-old Toni Neuner and Betty Dick, 58, the kid’s grandmother. James had been renting a room in Dick’s home in Casselberry. the place Toni Neuner and three different kids had been additionally staying that evening.
Courtroom information present James drank as much as 24 beers at a celebration, downed some gin and likewise took LSD earlier than returning to his room at Dick’s home. The woman was raped and strangled to dying. The opposite kids weren’t harmed.
James, who pleaded responsible to the costs, was additionally discovered responsible of the rape and of stealing Dick’s jewellery and automobile after stabbing her 21 occasions. Courtroom paperwork present James drove the automobile throughout the nation, sometimes promoting items of bijou till he was arrested on Oct. 6 of that yr in Bakersfield, California.
Police obtained a videotaped confession from James, who regardless of his responsible pleas was sentenced to dying upon an 11-1 suggestion by a jury.
James’ attorneys filed a number of appeals with state and federal courts, all of which had been denied. Most lately, the Florida Supreme Courtroom rejected an argument that James’ longtime use of medicine and alcohol, a number of head accidents and a coronary heart assault in 2023 led to psychological decline that might make his execution merciless and strange punishment.
The justices, nevertheless, agreed with a decrease courtroom choice that “James’s cognitive points don’t protect him from execution.” The courtroom additionally rejected an argument from James’ attorneys that the guts assault he suffered in jail led to deprivation of oxygen that affected his mind and must be thought of new proof to halt the execution.
Even whether it is new proof, the courtroom decided, the “defendant can’t set up that such proof would possible yield a much less extreme sentence at a brand new penalty section.”
The nonprofit Demise Penalty Info Heart stated Florida makes use of a three-drug cocktail for its deadly injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the guts.
Earlier this yr, James Ford was executed for the 1997 killings of a pair in Charlotte County — witnessed by their toddler daughter, who survived. DeSantis additionally signed a dying warrant for the April 8 execution of Michael Tanzi for the 2000 slaying of a girl within the Florida Keys.
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