Past Volunteers for Execution in Florida
James Barnes, whose execution is scheduled August 3, will be the 10th volunteer executed in the State of Florida since executions restarted in 1979 following Furman v. Georgia (1976).
James Barnes’s execution is scheduled for August 3 at 6:00 p.m.1 It will be Florida’s fifth execution in 2023.
Barnes represented himself throughout his trial court proceedings and waived the presentation of mitigation at the penalty phase. He also waived all postconviction proceedings once Gov. DeSantis signed the warrant for his execution. Because of this, some would say he is a “volunteer” for execution. The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) explains volunteers as:
those individuals who waived at least part of their ordinary appeals or who terminated proceedings that would have entitled them to additional process prior to their execution.
Some say that the execution of a volunteer is state-assisted suicide.
Barnes is the first volunteer since executions restarted after Hurst in 2017. Before that, the most recent volunteer in Florida, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) national list of volunteers, was in 2005. Altogether, according to DPIC, Florida has executed nine volunteers since executions restarted in 1979 after Furman v. Georgia (1976). Barnes will be the tenth, almost 30 years to the day since the first volunteer was executed in Florida in 1993.
Florida’s First Volunteer
Florida’s first volunteer was Michael Durocher, who confessed to the crimes for which he was sentenced to death. Those crimes began with a suicide pact with his girlfriend in 1983, according to one report.
The New York Times reported that Durocher “begged the Governor to sign his death warrant.” He “wrote Gov. Lawton Chiles that he was a ‘believer in capital punishment, and I respectfully request that justice now be served.’” After Gov. Chiles signed a death warrant scheduling his execution, Durocher “wrote the Governor a thank-you note.”
Ahead of his execution, appeals seeking to stop the execution were “filed over his objections.”
According to one article, Durocher entered the death chamber smiling and did not have any last words. At the time of his execution, Durocher was “the only [person] to be executed on his first death warrant.”
Durocher was executed by electrocution August 25, 1993. According to The Marshall Project, Durocher “was the 216th person executed in the United States since 1976, the 32nd person executed in Florida, and the 105th person executed by electrocution.”
String of Volunteers Executed 2000-2005
When Jeb Bush was Governor of Florida (1999-2005), there were rumors that he purposely selected volunteers for execution. The data supports that, as 8 of the 9 volunteers executed in the State to date were during his term.
Florida completed 16 executions between 2000 and 2005. Eight of the 16 people (50%) executed were volunteers. Five of the eight volunteers executed in that time-frame had claims challenging their sanity at execution, three of whom were volunteers. Also, one execution was botched.
The chart below shows the list of executions from 2000-2005 (from the Department of Corrections execution list). The highlighted names are those who were volunteers. Those with a black box had claims related to their sanity at execution.2 Bennie Demps’ name is in read because his execution was botched.3
Volunteers Executed 2000-2002
Between 2000 and 2002, four volunteers were executed.
Dan Hauser - Executed August 25, 2000
Dan Hauser admitted to crimes that occurred in 1995. Ahead of his execution in 2000, according to the Tampa Bay Times, he waived all appeals and fired his attorneys. His attorney, who was fired, said his execution was state-assisted suicide:
"Those who commit murder are a different kind of people," said Robert Augustus Harper, a Tallahassee lawyer Hauser fired. "To commit self-murder is in effect what is being allowed here, using the instrument of the state instead of a piece of a bedsheet."
Edward Castro - December 7, 2000
Edward Castro confessed to two murders; he was sentenced to death for one. Ahead of his execution in 2000, according to The Ledger, Castro fired his appellate attorneys three years before his execution and, at a hearing ahead of his execution, told the judge “he did not want any appeals filed.”
Also a few months before his execution, Castro “was considered for clemency . . . . In the weeks prior to that review, he sent a number of letters to the clemency board expressing his desire to waive any review of his sentence.”
According to The Marshall Project, Edward Castro “was the 681st person executed in the United States since 1976, the 50th person executed in Florida, and the 516th person executed by lethal injection.”
News articles about Castro’s execution:
Rigoberto Velasco-Sanchez - Executed October 2, 2002
Years ahead of his execution, Rigoberto Velasco-Sanchez dropped his appeals. While he confessed to killing two other inmates on death row, he said he did not commit the crime for which he was sentenced to death in a written statement released after his execution.
Ahead of his execution, Velasco-Sanchez’s attorneys initiated the Rule 3.811 process for claiming he was insane for execution. (More on this process here.) After a panel of State-appointed doctors determined he was competent for execution, Gov. Bush removed the temporary stay of execution.
Velasco-Sanchez was the fifth volunteer executed in the State. His last words were:
I love you, everybody.
News articles about Velsaco-Sanchez’s execution:
Aileen Wuornos - Executed October 9, 2002
Aileen Wuornos is one of Florida’s most famous serial killers and was the second woman executed in the State. She confessed to killing several men and later confessed on video ahead of her execution, too. Experts for both sides agreed at trial that she had borderline personality disorder.
Ahead of her execution, Wuornos’s attorneys filed claims alleging that her execution would violate the Eighth Amendment due to her mental illness. Once the death warrant was issued, her attorneys initiated the Rule 3.811 process for claiming she was insane for execution. (More on this process here.) After a panel of State-appointed doctors determined she was competent for execution, Gov. Bush lifted the temporary stay of execution.
In a video the day before her execution, Wuornos said she was “ready” for her execution and accused the State of torturing her ahead of her execution. She said she was a “hitchhiking hooker” and suggested she killed her victims in self-defense. She also said she thought her execution would be like Star Trek.
Her last words were:
I’d just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back like Independence Day, with Jesus June 6. Like the movie, big mother ship and all, I'll be back.
Volunteers Executed 2003-2005
Of the six people executed in Florida from 2003 to 2005, four (66.66%) were volunteers.
Newton C. Slawson - Executed May 16, 2003
Newton C. Slawson was convicted of crimes that occurred in 1989. In 1997, he dropped his appeals. The Herald-Tribune reported that he told the court in a September 1998 hearing:
I'm here to get a warrant signed and go to the electric chair and just be dead so that you can go stomp on somebody else.
In July 2001, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed Slawson’s ability to drop his appeals and first his attorneys.
In an article on May 12, 2003, the week of Slawson’s execution, the Herald-Tribune reported that Slawson was “one of an increasing number of death row inmates who ha[d] dropped appeals and volunteered for execution.” A spokesperson for the then-Governor “said the governor's office doesn't target inmates who have dropped appeals, but looks at cases where there is no ongoing or remaining legal action.”
Before his execution, Slawson’s attorneys asked Gov. Bush to stay Slawson’s execution so that his sanity for execution could be evaluated. Fifteen minutes before the scheduled execution, after Slawson had his final meal and witnesses had gathered at the prison for the execution, Gov. Bush stayed the execution.4
The next morning—after State-appointed doctors determined Slawson was sane for execution, according to the Ocala StarBanner—Slawson was “wheeled into the execution chamber” and executed by electrocution, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Of the execution, one of Slawson’s attorneys said: “The state is helping the mentally ill commit suicide.”
Paul Jennings Hill - Executed September 3, 2003
Paul Jennings Hill was “the first killer of an abortion provider to be executed in the United States,” according to the New York Times. In his final press interview ahead of his execution, he said:
I believe in the short and long term, more and more people will act on the principles for which I stand. . . . I'm willing and I feel very honored that they are most likely going to kill me for what I did.
His had “the tightest security at a Florida execution since Ted Bundy was put to death” four years prior.
John Blackwelder - Executed May 26, 2004
Blackwelder was serving a life sentence when he killed Raymond Wigley, who was also serving a life sentence. Blackwelder killed Wigley in Blackwelder’s cell after “Wigley went to Blackwelder’s cell asking for sex.”5 After killing Wigley, Blackwelder “turned himself in to prison authorities” and “pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.”6 The jury unanimously recommended death.
According to the Washington Post, Blackwelder “said he killed Wigley and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder so” that he would receive the death penalty.
Ahead of his execution, Blackwelder filed dropped his appeals. His final words were:
I'm glad I get to go home. I'm proud to be a Christian, and I thank you Jesus for saving me and allowing me to come home. Amen.
News articles about Blackwelder’s execution:
Glen Ocha - Executed April 5, 2005
Glen Ocha pleaded guilty without a trial and waived all appeals, dismissing his attorneys years before his execution. On the morning of his execution, he told prison guards he was ready to die, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The Tampa Bay Times further reported that Ocha had previously attempted suicide several times.
His final words were:
I would like to say I apologize to Carol Skjerva, the girl that I murdered, her family and her friends. This is the punishment that I deserve. I’m taking responsibility for my actions. I want everybody to know I’m not a volunteer but this is my responsibility I have to take.
Volunteer Who Changed His Mind
In addition to those discussed above, at least one volunteer who changed his mind and decided to challenge his sentence has also been executed.
Hamden pled guilty to crimes that occurred in 1984. According to the Herald-Tribune, he was the first person on Florida’s death row to drop his appeals ahead of execution, saying at one point “he could ‘hardly wait to sit in “Old Sparky.”’”
However, “[h]e later changed his mind.” Before his execution, his attorneys argued that he was mentally ill at the time he pled guilty.
After the courts denied his claims, Hamblen was executed by electrocution on September 21, 1990. Ahead of his execution, according to the New York Times, Hamblen “made a written request to prison officials that . . . his victim's husband, be given a special area to wait during the execution instead of in a cow pasture across from the prison where the public and reporters gather.”
In his last words, he told his attorney he loved her. “Before his last words, Hamblen smiled and stuck his tongue out at the three dozen witnesses while he was being strapped to the chair.”
My thoughts are with everyone involved in the warrant and execution process.
Here are news articles about Demps’ execution:
This Gainesville Sun and Herald-Tribune reported on this.
Blackwelder v. State, 851 So. 2d 650, 651 (Fla. 2003).
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