Florida

DPIC’s page dis­cussing Hurst v. Florida, and links to charts of the cas­es that have been decid­ed and cas­es that are still pending.

History of the Death Penalty

Prior to 1923, exe­cu­tions in Florida were car­ried out by the coun­ty, rather than the state. Florida changed exe­cu­tion meth­ods from hang­ing to elec­tro­cu­tion, when it placed exe­cu­tions under state control.

Timeline

1827 – First known exe­cu­tion in Florida, Benjamin Donica hung for murder.

1923 – A bill places all exe­cu­tions in Florida under state (rather than local) juris­dic­tion, and sub­sti­tutes hang­ing for the electric chair.

1972 – The Supreme Court strikes down the death penal­ty in Furman v. Georgia. Florida sub­se­quent­ly pass­es a new cap­i­tal punishment statute.

1976 – The Supreme Court rein­states the death penal­ty when it upholds Georgia’s statute in Gregg v. Georgia. In Proffitt v. Florida, the Court also upholds the Florida statute.

1979 – Florida is the first state to car­ry out a non-vol­un­tary exe­cu­tion post-Gregg when it exe­cutes John Spenkelink.

1990s – Florida botch­es the elec­tric chair exe­cu­tions of Jesse Tafero, Pedro Medina, and Allen Lee Davis and sub­se­quent­ly begins using lethal injec­tion as its execution method.

2002 – Aileen Wuornos, called the first female ser­i­al killer by the media, is executed.

2016 – Florida statu­to­ri­ly abol­ish­es judi­cial over­ride, the process by which tri­al judges were per­mit­ted to impose death sen­tences despite an advi­so­ry jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion for life.

2017 – Florida statu­to­ri­ly abol­ish­es non-unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tions for death and requires that the sen­tenc­ing jury unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend a death sen­tence before the tri­al judge may impose a death sentence.

2020 — The Florida Supreme Court reverse a long-held prece­dent requir­ing cap­i­tal appeals to be reviewed for pro­por­tion­al­i­ty. The court announced that it will no longer con­duct pro­por­tion­al­i­ty reviews which are intend­ed to guard against the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty in cas­es that do not warrant it.

2022 — A non-unan­i­mous Florida jury returns a ver­dict of life with­out parole for NIkolas Cruz, a teen offend­er con­vict­ed of killing 17 peo­ple in the shoot­ing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

2022 — Two secre­cy bills unan­i­mous­ly pass Florida’s crim­i­nal jus­tice com­mit­tees in the House and Senate. These bills exempt the Florida Department of Corrections from hav­ing to dis­close to the pub­lic the com­pa­nies that pro­vide lethal injec­tion drugs or the peo­ple who admin­is­ter the drugs dur­ing the execution.

2023 — Governor Ron DeSantis signs a bill end­ing the require­ment for juries to vote unan­i­mous­ly to rec­om­mend cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in a cap­i­tal felony case in order for a judge to sen­tence a defen­dant to death. An 8‑juror major­i­ty is now need­ed for a death sen­tence to be imposed.

2023 — Governor Ron DeSantis sign leg­is­la­tion allow­ing the death penal­ty to be sought in sex­u­al bat­tery cas­es against a minor under the age of 12.

Famous Cases

Aileen Wuornos was exe­cut­ed on October 9, 2002 for the mur­der of Richard Mallory, but she had also received death sen­tences for 5 oth­er mur­ders, and con­fessed to a sev­enth mur­der, though she was­n’t tried for it. Her case gar­nered exten­sive media atten­tion, and she was labeled America’s first female ser­i­al killer. Wuornos suf­fered from severe men­tal ill­ness, but the state of Florida found her com­pe­tent to waive her remain­ing appeals and be exe­cut­ed. Wuornos’ case was the inspi­ra­tion for the Oscar-win­ning film ​“Monster.”

Notable Exonerations

Florida has had 30 exon­er­a­tions from death row, more than any oth­er state. You can read about all of Florida’s exon­er­a­tions on DPIC’s Innocence page.

The first exon­er­a­tion in the United States after Furman v. Georgia was David Keaton. On the basis of mis­tak­en iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and coerced con­fes­sions, Keaton was sen­tenced to death for mur­der­ing an off duty deputy sher­iff dur­ing a rob­bery. The State Supreme Court reversed the con­vic­tion and grant­ed Keaton a new tri­al because of new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence. Charges were dropped and he was released after the actu­al killer was iden­ti­fied and convicted.

Delbert Tibbs, a for­mer Theology stu­dent, was con­vict­ed in 1974 for a mur­der of Terry Milloy and the rape of Milloy’s trav­el­ing com­pan­ion, Cynthia Nadeau. Nadeau picked Tibbs out of a line­up and tes­ti­fied against him, even though he did not match her orig­i­nal descrip­tion of the per­pe­tra­tor. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a retri­al, say­ing that the vic­tim was an unre­li­able wit­ness. Prosecutors dropped the charges against Tibbs and he was released in 1982.

Joseph Green Brown was sen­tenced to death in 1974 for the mur­der of Earlene Treva Barksdale. The case hinged on the tes­ti­mo­ny of Ronald Floyd, who lat­er admit­ted he had lied. Jurors nev­er heard tes­ti­mo­ny from an FBI bal­lis­tics expert who said a gun linked to Brown could not have fired the bul­let that killed Barksdale. In 1983, Brown came with­in 15 hours of exe­cu­tion before a Florida judge issued a stay, but wait­ed two and a half more years before his con­vic­tion was over­turned, and an addi­tion­al year before charges were dropped.

In 1982, Juan Ramos was con­vict­ed of the mur­der of an acquain­tance. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Ramos to the crime, but lat­er-dis­cred­it­ed evi­dence from a scent-track­ing dog con­vinced the jury to con­vict him. A judge over­ruled the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion for a life sen­tence and sen­tenced Ramos to death. In 1985, the tele­vi­sion news show 20/​20 exposed the unre­li­a­bil­i­ty of scent-track­ing evi­dence. The fol­low­ing year, the Florida Supreme Court over­turned Ramos’ con­vic­tion, say­ing that canine scent-track­ing was com­plete­ly untest­ed. At a retri­al in 1987, Ramos was acquitted.

Frank Lee Smith spent 15 years on death row before he died of can­cer in 2000. Just months after Smith’s death, DNA test­ing cleared him of the crime for which he had been con­vict­ed in 1985. The sole wit­ness in the case had recant­ed her tes­ti­mo­ny in 1989, iden­ti­fy­ing Eddie Lee Mosely, who was lat­er impli­cat­ed by DNA testing.

On October 12, 2015, the Florida Department of Corrections released Derral Hodgkins from cus­tody after the Florida Supreme Court acquit­ted Hodges of all charges in the stab­bing death of his for­mer girl­friend. The tri­al judge had imposed a death sen­tence for the con­vic­tion fol­low­ing a 7 – 5 vote by the jury to rec­om­mend death. No eye­wit­ness­es placed Hodgkins in the vicin­i­ty at or around the time of the mur­der and the evi­dence against him was completely circumstantial.

With new­ly dis­cov­ered con­fes­sions and DNA evi­dence point­ing to the prosecution’s chief wit­ness as the actu­al killer, Seminole County, Florida pros­e­cu­tors dropped all charges against Honduran nation­al Clemente Javier Aguirre in 2018. Aguirre was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2006 for the mur­der of two neigh­bors. He stead­fast­ly main­tained his inno­cence, say­ing he had dis­cov­ered the women after they had been killed. He did not report the mur­ders to author­i­ties, he said, because he was an undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grant and feared depor­ta­tion. On October 27, 2016, the Florida Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly vacat­ed Aguirre’s con­vic­tion and grant­ed him a new trial.

Clifford Williams, Jr. was exon­er­at­ed in 2019, forty-two years after he and his nephew were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der and he was sen­tenced to death. Submitting a report from its Conviction Integrity Unit that found ​“no cred­i­ble evi­dence of guilt and … cred­i­ble evi­dence of inno­cence,” Duval County pros­e­cu­tors asked a Jacksonville tri­al court to dis­miss all charges against Williams, 76 years old, and his nephew, Nathan Myers, 61.

Notable Commutations/​Clemencies

Governor Bob Graham grant­ed six clemen­cies dur­ing his term as gov­er­nor. No oth­er Florida gov­er­nor since 1976 has grant­ed clemen­cy to a death row inmate. Learie Leo Alford and Jesse Rutledge received clemen­cy from Graham due to their possible innocence.

Milestones in Abolition/​Reinstatement

Florida was the first state to rein­tro­duce the death penal­ty after Furman v. Georgia struck down all exist­ing death penalty laws.

Other Interesting Facts

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled Florida’s death penal­ty prac­tices uncon­sti­tu­tion­al numer­ous times, including:

• In Enmund v. Florida, in 1982, the Court ruled that Florida vio­lat­ed the Eighth Amendment when it attempt­ed to apply the death penal­ty to defen­dants who were minor par­tic­i­pants in a crime that result­ed in a mur­der, but who did not them­selves kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill the victim.
• In Hitchcock v. Dugger, in 1987, the Court — in a unan­i­mous opin­ion writ­ten by Justice Antonin Scalia — ruled Florida’s death penal­ty statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it did not allow the advi­so­ry jury or the sen­tenc­ing judge to con­sid­er rea­sons the defen­dant offered to spare his life unless those rea­sons were list­ed among the mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors that the leg­is­la­ture had set out in the state’s death penalty statute.
• In Hall v. Florida, in 2014, the Court ruled that Florida had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly impaired the enforce­ment of the Eighth Amendment pro­hi­bi­tion against sub­ject­ing per­sons with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty to the death penal­ty by apply­ing a hard IQ-cut­off score of 70 to deny death-row pris­on­ers’ intel­lec­tu­al disability claims.
• In Hurst v. Florida, in 2016, the Court ruled that Florida’s sen­tenc­ing statute vio­lat­ed the Sixth Amendment right to a jury tri­al because it required that a judge, rather than a jury, make find­ings of fact as to whether the pros­e­cu­tion had proven that a defen­dant is eli­gi­ble to face the death penalty.

Until 2016, Florida was one of three states that per­mit­ted tri­al judges to impose the death penal­ty based upon a jury’s non-unan­i­mous rec­om­men­da­tion for death. In Hurst v. State, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the prac­tice vio­lat­ed the state’s con­sti­tu­tion, and the Florida leg­is­la­ture, in March 2017, adopt­ed a new sen­tenc­ing law requir­ing a unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion for death before the judge could impose a death sentence.

Florida allows inmates to choose whether they will be exe­cut­ed by elec­tro­cu­tion or lethal injection.

The youngest inmates exe­cut­ed in Florida were both 16 years old. Willie Clay was exe­cut­ed on December 29, 1941 and James Davis was exe­cut­ed on October 9, 1944.

Resources

• Florida Department of Corrections Death Row Information
• American Bar Association Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report
• Department of Corrections
• Department of Corrections Death Row Roster
• Prosecutors
• Public defend­er’s office
• Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
• Victims’ ser­vices

Florida Execution Totals Since 1976