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State And Federal Info

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.

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.

Alligator on the Hillsborough River near Tampa. Photo by Richard Dieter.
Alligator on the Hillsborough River near Tampa. Photo by Richard Dieter.

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
  • Florida Capital Resource Center
  • Victims’ services

Florida Execution Totals Since 1976

News & Developments


Recent Legislative Activity

Jun 02, 2023

Conservative Commentator Warns of Dangers of Non-Unanimous Death Sentences

Florida’s recent deci­sion to allow death sen­tences with­out a unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion increas­es the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son, accord­ing to con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Christian Schneider (pic­tured). In a May 25, 2023 col­umn for Th…

Conservative Commentator Warns of Dangers of Non-Unanimous Death Sentences

Methods of Execution

Apr 27, 2023

New Podcast: Discussion with Ron McAndrew, Former Florida Warden Who Presided Over Executions

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, inter­views Ron McAndrew (pic­tured), a for­mer Florida Prison Warden who wit­nessed exe­cu­tions using elec­tro­cu­tion and lethal injec­tion in Florida and…

New Podcast: Discussion with Ron McAndrew, Former Florida Warden Who Presided Over Executions

Recent Legislative Activity

Apr 18, 2023

Florida Legislature Rescinds Unanimous-Jury Requirement in Death Sentencing

Florida is poised to become the state with the nation’s low­est thresh­old for juries to rec­om­mend death sen­tences, after the state leg­is­la­ture passed a bill allow­ing a judge to impose death if at least eight out of twelve jurors agree. Most states,…

Florida Legislature Rescinds Unanimous-Jury Requirement in Death Sentencing

Mental Illness

Apr 03, 2023

NEW VOICES: Former Florida Prison Psychiatrist Criticizes the Execution of Mentally Ill Prisoners

Dr. Joseph Thornton, a psy­chi­a­trist who for­mer­ly treat­ed death row pris­on­ers as the med­ical direc­tor of a Florida max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison, called for an end to the death penal­ty for those with severe men­tal ill­ness: ​“We should not be exe­cut­ing any…

NEW VOICES: Former Florida Prison Psychiatrist Criticizes the Execution of Mentally Ill Prisoners

New Voices

Mar 03, 2023

NEW VOICES: Former Warden Shares Traumatic Experience of Overseeing Executions

In a recent op-ed pub­lished in the Miami Herald, for­mer Florida war­den Ron McAndrew wrote about his expe­ri­ence with elec­tro­cu­tions and lethal injec­tions in Florida and Texas. He wit­nessed botched exe­cu­tions and observed the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects t…

NEW VOICES: Former Warden Shares Traumatic Experience of Overseeing Executions

Intellectual Disability

Feb 20, 2023

Upcoming Executions Raise Concerns about Mental Illness and the Death Penalty

The cas­es of two defen­dants fac­ing immi­nent exe­cu­tion raise con­cerns about the appro­pri­ate­ness of death sen­tences for those with severe men­tal ill­ness or sharply-lim­it­ing men­tal dis­abil­i­ties. Andre Thomas is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on April 5, 2…

Upcoming Executions Raise Concerns about Mental Illness and the Death Penalty

Innocence

Feb 15, 2023

Thirty-three Years After His Conviction, Former Death Row Prisoner Asks Supreme Court for Justice

Crosley Green was sen­tenced to death for mur­der in Florida in 1990 with an all-white non-unan­i­mous jury. He was removed from death row in 2009 and resen­tenced to life in prison. He has always main­tained his inno­cence and is now ask­ing the U.S. …

Thirty-three Years After His Conviction, Former Death Row Prisoner Asks Supreme Court for Justice

Recent Legislative Activity

Feb 06, 2023

Florida Governor Pushes To Remove Safeguards in Death Penalty Cases

At the urg­ing of Governor Ron DeSantis, bills have been intro­duced in the Florida House and Senate that would allow death sen­tences even when the jury can­not come to a unan­i­mous ver­dict on the prop­er penal­ty. The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would also pe…

Florida Governor Pushes To Remove Safeguards in Death Penalty Cases

Innocence

Jan 10, 2023

47 Years After His Death Sentence, Florida Court Orders DNA Testing for Tommy Zeigler

Nearly 47 years after being con­vict­ed of a quadru­ple mur­der, Florida death-row pris­on­er Tommy Zeigler has final­ly been per­mit­ted to inde­pen­dent­ly con­duct new DNA test­ing on evi­dence he claims will prove his inno­cence. Circuit Court Judge …

47 Years After His Death Sentence, Florida Court Orders DNA Testing for Tommy Zeigler

Innocence

Oct 31, 2022

Florida Trial Court Conditionally Approves DNA Testing for Tommy Ziegler in 46-Year-Old Death Penalty Case

In what the Tampa Bay Times described as ​“an epic turn­around” in a 46-year-old cap­i­tal case, a Florida tri­al judge is poised to order DNA test­ing of evi­dence death-row pris­on­er Tommy Zeigler has long asse…

Florida Trial Court Conditionally Approves DNA Testing for Tommy Ziegler in 46-Year-Old Death Penalty Case
View More

View Information by State

Additional Information


  • Death Penalty: Yes
  • Number of Executions Since 1976: 102
  • Number of Executions Before 1976 (may include federal and military executions): 347
  • Current Death Row Population: 318
  • Women on Death Row: 3
  • Number of Innocent People Freed From Death Row: 30
  • Number of Clemencies Granted: 6
  • Date of Reinstatement (following Furman v. Georgia): December 8, 1972
  • First Execution After Reinstatement: 1979
  • Location of Death Row/Executions: Florida State Prison, Raiford
  • Capital: Tallahassee
  • Region: South
  • Population: 21,538,187*
  • Murder Rate (per 100,000 population): 5.22
  • Is Life Without Parole an Option: Yes
  • Can a defendant get death for a felony in which s/he was not responsible for the murder?: Yes
  • Method of Execution: Choice of Injection or Electrocution
  • How is Sentence Determined?: Jury
  • Clemency Process: Governor has the authority to grant clemency on the advice of the Board of Executive Clemency
  • Governor: Ron DeSantis

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