DeSantis Signs Second Death Warrant of 2023

On Monday, Governor DeSantis signed a death warrant scheduled the execution of Louis Gaskin for April 12, 2023.

Mar 13, 2023

Today, Governor DeSantis issued his second death warrant of 2023. The warrant comes less than a month after the state executed Donald Dillbeck on February 23, 2023.1

Background on Gaskin’s Case

As the decades of litigation in Gaskin’s case shows, he has been fighting the constitutionality of his sentences of death for over 30 years.

The Crimes

The crimes underlying Gaskin’s sentence of death occurred on December 20, 1989.

After parking his car in the woods, Gaskin approached the home of Robert and Georgette Sturmfels from the outside with a loaded gun. He then shot the Sturmfels from outside the home. He entered the home through a window, shot the victims again, and took belongings from the home after covering the victims with a blanket.

After leaving the Sturmfels’ home, Gaskin went to the home of Joseph and Mary Rector. Again, from the outside of the home, Gaskin shot at Mr. Rector. When the Rectors were able to get to their car and escape, Gaskin continued shooting at their car.

Gaskin was arrested on December 30, 1989. After waiving his rights, Gaskin confessed to the crimes.

Trial

After a trial, the jury found Gaskin guilt of two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the Sturmfels as well as other counts for his burglary of the Sturmfels’ home and attempted murder of Mr. Rector. The jury acquitted Gaskin on attempted murder of Mrs. Rector.

The jury voted 8-4 to recommend a sentence of death for both murders, and the trial judge sentenced Gaskin to death on both counts of first-degree murder. The court also sentenced Gaskin to consecutive life terms for the noncapital offenses.

Direct Appeal (1991)

On direct appeal, Gaskin raised several claims. In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed Gaskin’s convictions for two counts of first-degree murder and both sentences of death.

On a petition for writ of certiorari, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Supreme Court of Florida’s decision and remanded for further proceedings in light of Espinosa v. Florida (1992). In Espinosa, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Florida’s jury instruction on the “heinous, atrocious, or cruel” (HAC) aggravating factor was unconstitutionally vague.

Direct Appeal on Remand from USSC (1993)

On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court again affirmed Gaskin’s two sentences of death.

The Court determined that “although Gaskin argued at trial” that there were issues with the jury instruction on the “cold, calculated, and premeditated” aggravator, he did not object to the HAC jury instruction. Therefore, he did not preserve the Espinosa issue and was not entitled to relief.

When the U.S. Supreme Court denied Gaskin’s petition for writ of certiorari from that decision in October 1993, Gaskin’s sentences of death became final. (This date will matter later on.)

Gaskin’s Postconviction Claims

Gaskin has unsuccessfully raised several postconviction claims over the years.

Rule 3.850 Claims (filed 1995)

Gaskin filed an initial motion for postconviction relief pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 3.850 on March 23, 1995, and later amended the motion on October 12, 1995. Several of the claims raised in his Rule 3.850 motion were related to ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. After a Huff hearing, the trial court summarily denied the motion without holding an evidentiary hearing.

On appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, Gaskin raised twenty-one issues. In its decision, the Court addressed only the claims that it determined “warrant[ed] discussion.”

In pertinent part, the Court determined that Gaskin was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present important mitigating evidence:

During the penalty phase of the trial, counsel presented limited evidence in mitigation. Indeed, the only evidence for the defense during the penalty phase of the trial consisted of brief testimony from two witnesses: Gaskin's cousin and his aunt. The total sum of their testimony was that Gaskin was well-liked by everyone growing up, he worked hard at a lumber mill where he was employed and seemed to enjoy his job, and there was nothing about Gaskin's past or background that would have caused him to act violently or commit murder.
In contrast to the limited mitigating evidence actually presented by trial counsel, Gaskin has presented an extensive litany of important facts in his motion for postconviction relief which paint an entirely different picture of Gaskin's family background and mental condition than the meager picture presented at trial. These facts include: (1) that his mother was an unwed teenager; (2) that he was raised by his elderly great-grandparents who abused Gaskin and forced him to eat off the floor; (3) that at the age of thirteen, Gaskin would hide under the bed and had to be physically pulled out, one time during which he was foaming at the mouth; (4) that Gaskin was exposed to incestuous sexual activity at a young age; (5) that as a teenager, Gaskin was arrested for stealing a bicycle and exhibited suicidal tendencies by playing with dangerous snakes and playing Russian Roulette with a loaded revolver; (6) that he failed the third and sixth grades and dropped out of school after the eighth grade; (7) that Gaskin suffers from longstanding, severe mental health disorders including organic brain damage, schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia. Gaskin contends that because of these mental illnesses, he experiences auditory hallucinations and episodes of derealization and depersonalization, and was unable to appreciate the criminality of his conduct and to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law at the time of the murders. According to Gaskin's petition, this important evidence was available at the time of Gaskin's trial yet none of it was presented to the jury.

As a result, the Supreme Court of Florida reversed the circuit court’s summary denial of Gaskin’s Rule 3.850 Motion and remanded for an evidentiary hearing.

In her special concurring opinion, Justice Pariente (joined by Justices Shaw and Anstead) noted how the procedure for litigating postconviction claims had created a delay in Gaskin receiving a proper review of the merits of his claims:

This defendant has been under a sentence of death since 1991, and has yet to have the merits of his claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel reviewed, even though the allegations are not conclusively rebutted by the record. Other defendants have experienced even lengthier delays. In my opinion, the interests of justice, and timeliness, would be better served by a requirement that trial courts conduct evidentiary hearings on all initial 3.850 claims brought in death penalty cases.

Rule 3.850 Claims (after remand, 2002)

After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court again denied Gaskin relief. Gaskin again appealed to the Supreme Court of Florida (his fourth time at the Court so far).

In a decision dated June 13, 2002,2 the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed the circuit court’s denial of relief. As to trial counsel's failure to present mental mitigation testimony (discussed above), the Court found "no error in the trial court's conclusion that counsel acted reasonably by not putting on evidence that would open the door to other damaging testimony about Gaskin." In other words, it was a strategic decision. Further, the court determined that even if there was any error, it did not prejudice Gaskin.

The Court’s reasoning on Gaskin’s other two claims was essentially the same.

Chief Justice Wells concurred in result only without an opinion.

Hurst v. Florida Claims

In 2016, in Hurst v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that Florida’s capital sentencing scheme (under which Gaskin was sentenced) was unconstitutional under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court held that the statute violated defendants’ right to jury trial by, essentially, failing to give the jury the proper authority in rendering its sentencing recommendation.

The outcome of Hurst was not a shock to most. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in Ring v. Arizona (2002) that Arizona’s capital sentencing statute violated the Sixth Amendment. Since Ring, many in Florida argued that Florida’s capital sentencing scheme was unconstitutional for the same reasons.

On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court in Hurst, the Florida Supreme Court’s holding forced the Florida Legislature to revise Florida’s capital sentencing scheme to require a jury’s unanimous finding of each determination necessary to impose a sentence of death.3

After Hurst, essentially every inmate on Florida’s death row (approximately 400 at the time) raised at least one claim to relief, if not more.

2017 Case

Like many others on Florida’s death row at the time, Gaskin raised a successive postconviction claim raising a right to relief based on Hurst, arguing that he was sentenced to death under an unconstitutional statute.

The Supreme Court of Florida denied Gaskin’s Hurst claim based on its decision in Asay v. State (2016) that Hurst applies retroactively only to sentences of death that became final after Ring (June 24, 2022).4 Because his sentences of death became final in 1993, the Court held Gaskin was not entitled to relief.

The majority was comprised of Chief Justice Labarga, Justice Quince, and Justice Polston, with Justice Canady concurring in result.

Both Justices Pariente and Perry concurred in part and dissented in part with opinions.

Justice Pariente argued that Gaskin should receive the benefit of Hurst because “he, through his attorneys, challenged the constitutionality of Florida's capital sentencing statute at trial in 1990 and, again, on direct appeal in 1991.” She explained further:

Although our opinion did not detail Gaskin's constitutional challenges, the record on appeal reveals that Gaskin argued that “section 921.141 . . . was unconstitutional on its face” for the reasons espoused by the United States Supreme Court in Ring and Hurst v. Florida and then further explained by this Court in Hurst . . . .
Amid a myriad of arguments as to how Florida's capital sentencing scheme violated the fundamental rights of defendants facing the death penalty in Florida, Gaskin specifically argued that the statute “does not require a sentencing recommendation by a unanimous jury or a substantial majority of the jury and thus results in the arbitrary and unreliable application of the death sentence and denies the right to a jury and to due process of law.”Among Gaskin's several motions, filed through counsel, disputing the validity of Florida's capital sentencing scheme was a “Motion for Use of Special Verdict Form for the Unanimous Jury Determination of Statutory Aggravating Circumstances,” citing among other constitutional bases the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 22, of the Florida Constitution. State v. Gaskin, No. 90–01/07/17 (Fla. May 10, 1990). Gaskin also filed a separate motion to declare unconstitutional section 921.141, Florida Statutes, broadly arguing many of the deficiencies in the statute that have now been recognized as constitutionally impermissible, such as jury overrides and the bare majority jury recommendation. Most closely resembling Hurst v. Florida and Hurst, Gaskin argued that section 921.141 is facially unconstitutional because the “jury recommendation need not be unanimous,” nothing “require[s] the court to instruct the jury that to return a recommendation of death, the jury must be convinced beyond every reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances,” “the jury is not required to list the specific aggravating circumstances they have found beyond a reasonable doubt when they recommend the death penalty,” and “it permits the trial judge to consider aggravating circumstances in imposing the death sentence that the advisory jury may not have considered or that the advisory jury may have rejected.” Id. at 7–9.

(Footnotes omitted.) In other words, Gaskin and his attorneys had raised and argued what the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately determined in 2016 over 25 years before. In a nod to the representation of Gaskin’s counsel, Justice Pariente wrote: “The constitutional arguments made on behalf of Gaskin were a product of the advocacy of his lawyer Christopher S. Quarles, an assistant public defender and a zealous advocate for his death penalty clients for decades.”

Justice Perry’s concurring in part and dissenting in part opinion referenced his dissenting opinion in Asay and said he’d also apply Hurst retroactively to Gaskin.

2018 Case

For reasons I’ll further explain later, inmates on Florida’s death row who were denied relief based on Asay in their first round of Hurst claims tried again a little bit later.

Gaskin was among those. After the circuit court denied his second successive postconviction claim based on Hurst, Gaskin appealed to the Supreme Court of Florida. As in the other cases, Supreme Court of Florida issued an order to show cause (OSC) why Gaskin’s claims should not be denied based on the Court’s decision in Hitchcock (which basically, for these purposes, said the same thing as Asay). Gaskin responded to the OSC.

Upon review, the Court affirmed the circuit court’s denial of Gaskin’s motion. Chief Justice Labarga and Justices Quince, Polston, and Lawson were in the majority.

Again, Justice Pariente concurred in result with an opinion that referenced her dissenting opinion in Hitchcock.

Justices Lewis and Canady also concurred in result without an opinion.

All Writs Petition (2020)

In 2020, Gaskin filed a pro se all writs petition in the Supreme Court of Florida. Because he’s represented by counsel, the petition was unauthorized, and the Court dismissed it as such.

Warrant

On Monday afternoon (March 13), Governor DeSantis signed a warrant for Gaskin’s execution.

The execution is scheduled for April 12, 2023.

This thirty-day warrant period follows recent practice of short warrant periods.5

What Happens Next

As soon as a warrant is issued, several people must begin preparing for the execution. Over the next thirty days, people across the state will be under immense pressure until the execution.

For instance, prison staff and Gaskin himself must prepare for the execution. Attorneys for Gaskin must raise and fully litigate any final claims Gaskin has, and attorneys for the State must respond to those claims. Judges and court staff must review and render decisions on those claims.

Gaskin, by and through his attorneys, will undoubtedly raise several claims seeking to stay or cancel the execution that will be litigated in the trial court, appealed to the Supreme Court of Florida, and then brought to the U.S. Supreme Court for review.

This article that I wrote, published by City and State Florida, explains everything that must occur in preparation for the execution.

We will keep you updated.

Florida Court Review

will be covering the briefing once Gaskin’s final claims reach the Florida Supreme Court, so follow that, too. Things move fast with warrants.

My thoughts are with everyone involved.

Tracking Florida's Death Penalty

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