NEW WARRANT: James Duckett's execution scheduled March 31
Yesterday afternoon, Gov. DeSantis signed a death warrant scheduling James Duckett’s execution for March 31, 2026. It is the fifth death warrant signed so far this year.
Yesterday afternoon, Gov. DeSantis signed a death warrant scheduling James Duckett’s execution for March 31, 2026. It is the fifth death warrant signed so far this year.
Shortly after the warrant was issued, the Florida Supreme Court issued a Scheduling Order for warrant-related litigation, which outlines the following schedule:
Friday, March 13 at 11:00 a.m.: conclusion of circuit court proceedings
Friday, March 13 at 1:00 p.m.: notice of appeal and any writ petition
Monday, March 16 at 2:00 p.m.: initial brief due
Tuesday, March 17 at 5:00 p.m.: answer brief due
Wednesday, March 18 at 2:00 p.m.: reply brief due
Background of Duckett’s Case
James Duckett was convicted of first-degree murder based on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death for murdering eleven-year-old Teresa McAbee in 1987. The facts are as follows:
Duckett, a police officer for the City of Mascotte, was the only officer on patrol from 7:00 p.m., May 11, 1987, to 7:00 a.m., May 12, 1987. Between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. on May 11, Teresa McAbee . . . walked a short distance from her home to a convenience store to purchase a pencil. Teresa left the store with a sixteen-year-old Mexican boy, who was doing laundry next door. The boy testified that they walked over to the convenience store’s dumpster and talked for about twenty minutes before Duckett approached them. A clerk at the convenience store testified that Duckett entered the store and asked her the girl’s name and age, at which time she advised him that Teresa was between ten and thirteen years old. After indicating that he was going to check on her, Duckett exited the store and walked toward the dumpster, where he located the two children. Duckett testified that he conversed with the children and subsequently, acting in his capacity as a police officer, instructed Teresa to return home. The sixteen-year-old boy testified that, after speaking with Duckett, he went to the laundromat to wait for his uncle, who arrived soon thereafter; that Duckett and Teresa were standing near the patrol car; and that Duckett asked the uncle the nephew’s age. Subsequently, Duckett suggested that the uncle talk to his nephew while he spoke to Teresa. According to the uncle and the boy, Duckett placed Teresa in the passenger’s side of his patrol car and shut the door before proceeding to the driver’s side. The uncle also testified that he never saw Teresa touch the hood of Duckett’s car.
At approximately 11:00 p.m., Teresa’s mother walked to the convenience store, searching for her daughter. Upon arrival, she was told by the store’s clerk that Duckett may have taken her daughter to the police station. The mother then left the store and spent about an hour with her sister driving around Mascotte in search of Teresa. During this time, the mother did not see a police car. She next went to the Mascotte police station and, finding no one there, she drove a short distance to the Groveland police station. There, she told an officer that she wanted to report her daughter as missing. The officer told her that he would contact a Mascotte officer to meet her at the Mascotte police station. Teresa’s mother returned to the Mascotte police station and waited for fifteen to twenty minutes before Duckett arrived. After arriving, Duckett told her that he had spoken with Teresa at the store; that she had been in his police car; and that he had directed her to return home. Before returning home, the mother also filed a missing person report with Duckett. Subsequently, Duckett went to the mother’s residence to get a picture of her daughter, called the police chief to inform him of the missing person report, and advised the police chief that he had made a flyer and did not need any help in the matter. Duckett then returned to the convenience store with a flyer but told the clerk not to post it since it was not a good picture. Although he told the clerk that he would return with a better one, he never did. Duckett did bring flyers to two other convenience stores. The clerk at one of these stores testified that, while the police usually drove by every forty-five minutes to an hour, Duckett came by at 9:30 p.m. but failed to return until he brought the flyer later that evening. A tape of Duckett’s radio calls indicated none between 10:50 p.m. and 12:10 a.m. At 1:15 a.m., Duckett went to the uncle’s house to question his nephew about Teresa, and Duckett returned to the mother’s home around 3:00 a.m.
Later that morning, a man saw what he believed to be a body in a lake and went to find the police chief, who determined that it was Teresa’s body. The lake is less than one mile from the convenience store where Teresa was last seen.
A medical examiner testified that the perpetrator had sexually assaulted the victim while she was alive, strangled her, and then drowned her, causing her death. Prior to this incident, the victim had not engaged in any sexual activity. Blood was found on her underpants but not in or about Duckett’s patrol car. Semen was discovered on her jeans.
A technician for the sheriff’s department examined the tire tracks at the murder scene and indicated that they were very unusual. While leaving the crime scene, he observed that the tracks of a Mascotte police car appeared to be similar. He stopped his vehicle, examined the tracks, and determined that they were consistent with the tracks at the crime scene. An expert at trial corroborated this evaluation. The tracks were made by Goodyear Eagle mud and snow tires, which are designed for northern driving. While the local tire center had not sold any of those particular tires during its nine years of existence, it had received two sets by mistake and placed them on the two Mascotte police cars.
Evidence revealed that the vehicle which left the impressions had driven through a mudhole. However, no evidence was presented that Duckett cleaned his vehicle, and no debris from the scene was found in or on his vehicle. Evidence was also presented that Duckett was neat and clean later that night, as if he had just come on duty.
Both Duckett’s and Teresa’s fingerprints were discovered on the hood of Duckett’s patrol car. Duckett’s prints were commingled with the victim’s, whose prints indicated that she had been sitting backwards on the hood and had scooted up the car.
A pubic hair was found in the victim’s underpants. While other experts could not reach a conclusion by comparing that hair with Duckett’s pubic hair, Michael Malone, an FBI special agent who had been qualified as an expert in hairs and fibers in forty-two states, examined the hair sample, concluding that there was a high degree of probability that the pubic hair found in her underpants was Duckett’s pubic hair. Malone also testified that the pubic hair did not match the hairs of the sixteen-year-old boy, the uncle, or the others who were in contact with the victim that evening.1
The jury recommended death by a vote of 8-4.2
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed Duckett’s conviction and death sentence on direct appeal in 1990.
Initial Postconviction & State Habeas
“Duckett filed his initial 3.850 postconviction motion on May 1, 1992, an amended motion on June 12, 1992, and a consolidated motion on November 14, 1994, raising fourteen claims and various subclaims. Over the next several years the circuit court held a number of evidentiary hearings. On August 10, 2001, the court issued an order denying relief.”3 Duckett also raised claims related to DNA testing, which were denied.
On appeal, Duckett raised several claims:
(1) he was denied an adversarial testing because certain exculpatory evidence was not presented; (2) he was denied effective assistance of counsel for failure to investigate, develop, and present mitigation evidence and failure to obtain and present psychological testing; (3) the rule preventing counsel from interviewing jurors violates the federal and Florida constitutions; (4) prosecutorial misconduct rendered Duckett's conviction and sentence fundamentally unfair; (5) his counsel's failure to obtain an adequate mental health evaluation and to provide necessary background information to a mental health consultant denied Duckett a fair trial; (6) the two aggravating factors were constitutionally vague and improperly argued and applied; (7) the jury was misled by argument and instructions which unconstitutionally diluted its sense of responsibility; (8) the penalty phase jury instructions improperly shifted the burden to Duckett to prove that death was inappropriate; (9) Duckett's absence from critical stages of the proceedings violated his rights to due process and a fair trial; and (10) the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.4
Related to his first claim, Duckett raised claims regarding recanted testimony:
Duckett seeks a new trial because he claims the State’s witness, Grace Gwendolyn Gurley, lied at trial about material facts. Gurley testified that on the night of the murder she walked to the Circle K accompanied by two other girls. She saw a Mascotte police officer, whom she later identified as Duckett, and the victim. According to Gurley, Duckett called her and her companions along with the victim and “some Spanish boys” to the police car and told them all to go home because it was past curfew. Instead of going home, Gurley left the store and hid on a path near the store. She then saw Duckett leave “about a minute” later alone. Gurley walked back towards the store to use the phone and saw a police car parked near the dumpster with its headlights off. The victim was still at the store, standing in between the ice machines and the door. Gurley testified that Duckett called the victim and “told her to come here.” The victim walked toward the police car. Gurley retreated to the bushes so that the officer would not see her. She heard a door shut. When she looked out, she could not see the victim. The police car backed up and started to drive away. Gurley testified that she saw two people inside the car, “[o]ne was the driver, was the big man, and a small person.” Gurley could not describe the small person with any more detail. When she heard about Duckett’s arrest, she contacted police with this information.
Gurley testified that she did not receive any type of deal in exchange for her testimony. She also acknowledged that she had been convicted of three felonies. On cross-examination, she admitted that she had lied to the police about not knowing the name of one of the two girls who had accompanied her to the store and about the fact that the girl had gone home earlier in the night.
In various interviews with counsel and investigators after trial, Gurley recanted her testimony, saying that she was not at the Circle K on the night of the murder, that she was told by police what she should say at trial, and that she received special treatment in jail because of her cooperation. In another interview, she recanted portions of her recantation, stating that she was at the store on the night of the murder and did see a police car leave with a passenger. At the evidentiary hearing below, when asked about the night of the murder, Gurley responded, “Your Honor, I feel that I must respectfully invoke my privilege against self-incrimination and decline to answer that question under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Article I of the Constitution of the State of Florida.” When the judge asked her if that would be her response to any questions concerning the night of the murder, Gurley responded in the affirmative.5
In 2005, the Court denied the claim, finding that Duckett failed to establish prejudice because “even without Gurley’s testimony, there was strong circumstantial evidence presented at trial.”6 The Court also denied Duckett’s other claims and petition for writ of habeas corpus, in which he raised four claims:
(1) he is innocent and his execution would be a miscarriage of justice; (2) his direct appeal does not meet constitutional requirements because the State failed to disclose pertinent facts necessary to the Court's review; (3) appellate counsel failed to raise numerous meritorious issues on direct appeal; and (4) Duckett’s death sentence violates the United States Supreme Court's decisions in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), and Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000).
Federal Habeas
On January 8, 2007, Duckett filed a federal petition for writ of habeas corpus raising “16 claims of constitutional violations.”7 On March 25, 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida denied Duckett’s petition.
Successive Postconviction
Duckett filed a successive postconviction motion, which was denied. On appeal, Duckett argued:
(A) the circuit court erred in summarily denying his claim that newly discovered evidence demonstrates that a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) analyst's testimony at trial regarding hair evidence was erroneous and this Court should remand his case to the postconviction court for an evidentiary hearing on this claim; (B) the failure to apply the United States Supreme Court's decision in Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30, 130 S.Ct. 447, 175 L.Ed.2d 398 (2009), retroactively to his claims violates his constitutional rights to due process and equal protection; (C) newly discovered evidence that a trial witness recanted her testimony requires that Duckett be granted a new trial; and (D) section 837.021, Florida Statutes (1997), relating to perjury by contradictory statement, is invalid.8
In 2014, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s summary denial of relief of Duckett’s successive postconviction motion.
In 2018, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Duckett’s successive postconviction motion seeking relief under Hurst because his sentence of death became final before 2002.9
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My thoughts are with everyone involved in the warrant- and execution-related process.
Duckett v. State, 568 So. 2d 891, 891-93 (Fla. 1990).
Id. at 894.
Duckett v. State, 918 So.2d 224, 230 (Fla. 2006).
Id. at 231 (footnote omitted).
Id. at 233-34. Note this is similar to what happened in the recent evidentiary hearing in Michael Bell’s case.
Id. at 234.
Duckett v. McDonough, 701 F. Supp. 2d 1245 (M.D. Fla. 2010).
Duckett v. State, 148 So. 3d 1163, 1165-66 (Fla. 2014).