BREAKING: Warrant signed for Edward James

This evening, Gov. DeSantis signed the second death warrant of 2025, scheduling the execution of Edward James for 6:00 p.m. on March 20

This evening, Gov. DeSantis signed the second death warrant of 2025, less than a week after the State executed James Ford.

The warrant schedules the execution of Edward James for 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 20—a 31-day warrant period, which is two days shorter than Ford had.

The letter accompanying the warrant from Attorney General (AG) James Uthmeier comes just one day after Uthmeier was sworn in as Florida’s new AG. (More on that here.) The full warrant package can be accessed on the Florida Supreme Court docket here.

---

Scheduling Order

As it generally does, the Florida Supreme Court issued a Scheduling Order related to warrant-related litigation. The schedule is as follows:

• Friday, February 28 at 3:00 p.m.: Trial court proceedings must be completed

• Monday, March 3 at 9:00 a.m.: Notice of Appeal and any habeas petition due to Florida Supreme Court

• Monday, March 3 at 3:00 p.m.: Record on appeal due

• Wednesday, March 5 at 3:00 p.m.: Initial Brief due

• Friday, March 7 at 3:00 p.m.: Answer Brief due

• Monday, March 10, at 11:00 a.m.: Reply Brief due

A copy of the Scheduling Order can be accessed on the Florida Supreme Court docket here.

---

Background of James’ Case

Trial

In August 1995, James was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree murder for the 1993 murders of Betty Dick and Toni Neuner in Seminole County. In its 1997 decision on direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court described the murders follows:

[O]n the evening of Sunday, September 19, 1993, James attended a party at Todd Van Fossen's house. James rented a room from one of the victims in this case, Betty Dick, and lived about two blocks away from the Van Fossens. He arrived at 6 p.m. and stayed until approximately 10:30 p.m. Todd's girlfriend, Tina, noticed that James seemed intoxicated by the end of the evening and asked him if he wanted to spend the night, but James declined. James drank between six and twenty-four cans of beer during the party, as well as some “shotguns”-three beers drunk through a funnel in a very short period of time. Shortly after leaving the party James ran into Jere Pearson who lived nearby and was returning from the Handy Way convenience store. Jere Pearson was interviewed by the assistant state attorney and the assistant public defender before trial. . . .

Pearson stated that when the two met, James was on his way to visit Tim Dick, the victim's son, and his girlfriend, Nichole, who also lived nearby. They stopped and talked for about ten minutes and Pearson watched James ingest about ten “hits” of LSD on paper. James told Pearson he had been drinking at Todd Van Fossen's party, but he appeared sober to Pearson.

After briefly visiting Tim Dick and Nichole where he drank some gin, James returned to his room at Betty Dick's house. . . . James went to the kitchen, made himself a sandwich and retired to his room. Eventually, he returned to the living room where he grabbed Betty Dick's eight-year-old granddaughter, Toni Neuner, by the neck and strangled her, hearing the bones pop in her neck. Believing Toni was dead, he removed her clothes and had vaginal and anal intercourse with her in his room. Toni never screamed or resisted. After raping Toni, he threw her behind his bed.

James then went to Betty Dick's bedroom where he intended to have sexual intercourse with her. He hit Betty in the back of the head with a pewter candlestick. She woke up and started screaming, “Why, Eddie, why?” Betty's screaming brought Wendi Neuner to the doorway of her grandmother's bedroom where she saw James stabbing Betty with a small knife. When James saw Wendi he grabbed her, tied her up, and placed her in the bathroom. Thinking that Betty was not dead, James went to the kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife and returned to Betty's room and stabbed her in the back. . . .

Covered with blood, James took a shower in the bathroom where Wendi remained tied up and then threw together some clothes and belongings. He returned to Betty's room and took her purse and jewelry bag before driving away in her car. . . .¹

After a penalty phase, where James testified on his own behalf, the jury recommended death by a vote of 11-1 on both counts, as reflected on the Florida Supreme Court docket:

On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court described James’ past as follows:

James . . . was born in Pennsylvania in 1961. At the age of ten, he learned that his biological father had left him when he was just a baby. He eventually went to live with his biological father in Indianapolis when he was fourteen. However, James' father turned out to be a drug dealer and introduced James to marijuana. James moved with his father to Massachusetts, but his father returned to Indianapolis without James two weeks after the move. James has never heard from his father since that time. James subsequently moved to Florida with his mother after she separated from her second husband. He started experimenting with drugs, including marijuana and PCP, and eventually dropped out of school. He did get his GED, however, and entered the army at age seventeen. He started using more drugs in the army and received a general discharge under honorable conditions. James then spent eighteen months hitchhiking around the country and ultimately had a son who was born in March of 1983. James went to San Francisco where he graduated from a computer learning center. One day, James received a phone call from his son's mother who threatened to kill his son unless James would take him. James returned to Florida and took custody of his son, Jesse. However, James soon realized he was not prepared to raise his son, and his drinking and drug usage increased. His drug abuse caused his relationship with his girlfriend to break up and he distanced himself from his son. From James' birthday on August 4, 1993, until the day of the offense on September 20, 1993, James was steadily intoxicated. James feels ashamed for what he did, especially because he loved Betty and her grandchildren and felt that they were like his own family. James explained that he does not believe his drug abuse excuses his conduct, but it does help to explain it. On the other hand, James also testified that he had never had an adverse reaction when he took LSD and always had good experiences. In addition, he did not remember taking LSD prior to the murders.

In sentencing James to death, the trial court found the following aggravating factors:

(1) each murder was heinous, atrocious or cruel; (2) James was contemporaneously convicted of another violent felony; and (3) each murder was committed during the course of a felony.

The trial court also considered sixteen mitigating circumstances, including “the statutory mitigator that James' ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was substantially impaired due to drug and alcohol abuse; and that James was under the influence of moderate mental or emotional disturbance at the time of the offense. The trial court gave both of these mental mitigators ‘significant weight.’”

Further, the trial court found the following mitigation and assigned the noted weight:

• James' past acts of kindness and helpfulness to friends (some weight);

• James’ genuine shame and remorse for his offenses (some weight);

• James' full cooperation with authorities in confessing to the crimes and entering pleas of guilty to the offenses he remembered and “no contest” to those he “truly [did] not remember” (substantial weight); and

• James' good conduct while incarcerated (some weight).

The trial court also “noted in mitigation that James is capable of offering assistance to others while in custody and serving as an example to others about the negative consequences of illicit drug use.”

---

Direct Appeal

On direct appeal, James raised six claims:

(1) that the trial court erred in failing to grant James' motion for a mistrial based on the prosecutor's improper comments during closing argument; (2) the trial court erred in overruling James' objection to the standard jury instruction on the heinous, atrocious or cruel (HAC) aggravator on the ground that it is unconstitutionally vague; (3) the trial court erred in finding the HAC aggravator as to the murder of Toni Neuner; (4) the trial court erred in instructing the jury; (5) the trial court improperly rejected the statutory mitigator that the murders were committed while James was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance; and (6) James' death sentences are disproportionate and cruel and unusual punishment under the state and federal constitutions.

The Florida Supreme Court rejected each claim and affirmed James’ convictions and sentences of death. His sentences of death became final on December 1, 1997.

---

Postconviction

AG Uthmeier’s letter to Gov. DeSantis from today outlines James’ initial postconviction proceedings:

In 2019, James filed a successive motion for postconviction relief raising five claims:

(1) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to adequately investigate and prepare a defense or challenge the State's case and encouraging James to plead to all charges; (2) ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to raise the issue of James's competence; (3) James was incompetent at the time of his state postconviction waiver; (4) James's death sentences violate the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments in light of Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. 92, 136 S.Ct. 616, 193 L.Ed.2d 504 (2016); and (5) cumulative errors deprived James of a fundamentally fair trial, guaranteed under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.²

The circuit court summarily denied James’ motion. On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial.

---

Federal Habeas

AG Uthmeier’s letter to Gov. DeSantis from today outlines James’ federal habeas proceedings as follows:

---

My thoughts are with everyone involved in the warrant- and execution-related process.

1. James v. State, 695 So. 2d 1229 (Fla. 1997).

2. James v. State, 323 So. 3d 158 (Fla. 2021).