Florida Justices Halt Execution as Handwritten Notes Contradict Police Testimony

The Florida Supreme Court has halt­ed the exe­cu­tion of Jose Antonio Jimenez (pic­tured), sched­uled for August 14, 2018. 

The unan­i­mous one-page order issued by the court on August 10 did not explain the rea­sons the jus­tices grant­ed the stay. However, Jimenez’s motion for a stay ref­er­enced 80 pages of police records that, Jimenez’s lawyer said, had not pre­vi­ous­ly been pro­vid­ed to the defense. Those records — which were part of 1,000 pages of doc­u­ments turned over to the defense two weeks before the sched­uled exe­cu­tion — includ­ed hand-writ­ten notes by the inves­ti­gat­ing detec­tives that appear to con­tra­dict pre-tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny police had giv­en in the case. 

The motion, filed by Jimenez’s lawyer, Marty McClain, said the ​“pre­vi­ous­ly unseen notes” con­tained ​“sur­pris­ing and down­right shock­ing infor­ma­tion” that the lead detec­tive (iden­ti­fied as a Detective Ojeda) and a sec­ond police inves­ti­ga­tor (iden­ti­fied as Detective Diecidue) gave ​“false and/​or mis­lead­ing” tes­ti­mo­ny ​“in order to facil­i­tate Mr. Jimenez’s con­vic­tion” when they were deposed by Jimenez’s trial counsel. 

McClain told The News Service of Florida, “[t]he new doc­u­ments show dis­hon­est cops,” which has added sig­nif­i­cance in this case because Jimenez has main­tained his inno­cence ​“and the con­vic­tion is premised on Ojeda telling the truth.” 

Jimenez also sought a stay pend­ing the United States Supreme Court’s dis­po­si­tion of a Missouri death-penal­ty case, Bucklew v. Precythe, that could clar­i­fy the stan­dard for deter­min­ing when a state’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Jimenez has argued that Florida’s use of the drug eto­mi­date as a seda­tive dur­ing three-drug exe­cu­tions cre­ates an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al risk of a tor­tur­ous death. During Florida’s last exe­cu­tion, Eric Branch screamed when the exe­cu­tion drugs were administered. 

McClain said that expert tes­ti­mo­ny in anoth­er case had indi­cat­ed that a quar­ter of exe­cu­tions using eto­mi­date could result in pris­on­ers scream­ing in pain. ​“Is it OK to have your con­demned peo­ple scream 25 per­cent of the time?,” McClain said. ​“And what about the tor­ture to those who are next, who know that 25 per­cent of the time peo­ple are in pain and scream­ing? Are they going to be the one?”

The Florida Supreme Court has set a sched­ule for briefs to be filed in the case, with brief­ing con­clud­ing on August 28. The court will then decide whether it will hear oral argu­ment in the case.