TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a demise warrant for a person convicted of murdering two individuals in 1993 in Duval County, setting the stage for a probably record-tying eighth execution this yr.
DeSantis signed the demise warrant for Michael Bernard Bell, 54, with the execution scheduled July 15 at Florida State Jail, in response to data posted on the state Supreme Court docket web site.
If the state places Bell to demise by deadly injection and carries out a scheduled June 24 execution of Thomas Gudinas, it could match probably the most executions in a yr because the demise penalty was reinstated in 1976 after a U.S. Supreme Court docket choice had halted it. Florida additionally executed eight inmates in 1984 and 2014, a Florida Division of Corrections record reveals.
Bell was sentenced to demise within the December 1993 taking pictures deaths of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith exterior a Jacksonville bar, in response to court docket paperwork. Bell used an AK-47 rifle to shoot the pair as they received right into a automobile.
The paperwork from previous Florida Supreme Court docket and U.S. Supreme Court docket appeals mentioned Bell was searching for revenge for the demise of his brother, who had been killed by West’s half-brother earlier in 1993.
The Division of Corrections web site mentioned Bell is also serving 25-year sentences on three second-degree homicide expenses unrelated to the taking pictures exterior the bar.
Friday’s demise warrant got here three days after the state executed Anthony Wainwright, who was convicted of kidnapping a girl in 1994 from a Winn-Dixie grocery store parking zone in Lake Metropolis and raping and murdering her in rural Hamilton County.
DeSantis on Could 23 additionally signed a demise warrant for Gudinas, who was convicted within the Could 1994 homicide of Michelle McGrath, who had been out for an evening of leisure in downtown Orlando. McGrath’s physique was discovered about 7:30 a.m. in an alley and had been “savagely raped and severely overwhelmed by the defendant with a blunt instrument,” a circuit choose wrote in sentencing Gudinas.
Gudinas’ attorneys have requested the Florida Supreme Court docket to halt the execution, although justices had not dominated as of early Friday night.
The state this yr additionally executed Glen Rogers on Could 15; Jeffrey Hutchinson on Could 1; Michael Tanzi on April 8; Edward James on March 20; and James Ford on Feb. 13.
In the meantime, the state put to demise one inmate in 2024 and 6 in 2023. It didn’t execute anybody in 2020, 2021 and 2022, the Division of Corrections record reveals.