Florida Richter refuses to block the execution

Tallahassee, Fla. – A judge of the Seminole County Circuit refused to block the planned execution of the convicted murderer Edward James on March 20, and declined arguments that he was partly spared because of “cognitive decline”.

The judge Melanie Chase In late Wednesday afternoon, gave a 14-page decision that made an application to prevent James' execution of the murders of a woman and 8-year-old granddaughter from 1993. The case is now expected to go to the Supreme Court of Florida.

James' lawyer argued in the application submitted on Sunday that the execution of the constitutional prohibition of the cruel and unusual punishment would violate. The movement said that James had served in solitary confinement in the past three decades and suffered “physical and mental deterioration” after an almost fatal heart attack in 2023.

But Chase denied the movement for a number of reasons, including the statement that James' cognitive problems were known long before the heart attack. She wrote that a legal right to the topic was “prematurely”.

“In his application, the accused himself claims that he had suffered from a cognitive decline and dementia process for years, and he had summarized the knowledge of experts regarding this decline from evaluations that were already carried out in 2018,” said the judgment. “However, he does not claim why he waited to raise this claim until the death sentence was signed.”

Chase also wrote that the claim does not “deserve”.

“Based on all of these proofs, it is clear that the cognitive decline and the intellectual deterioration of the accused have existed for many years,” the judge wrote. “However, it seems that no attempts were made to maintain the additional imaging that the experts recommended, or to find a relief for the post -group based on this so far cognitive decline. Insofar as the accused argues that his cognitive decline and brain damage were only recently tightened due to his heart attack from 2023, the court still states that (the claim) has no earnings. “

On February 18, governor Ron Desantis issued a command against James, who was executed this year the second inmate in Florida. James Ford was executed on February 13, 1997 in the murder of a couple in Charlotte County.

James was convicted of murder of Betty Dick and her granddaughter Toni Neuner. He rented a room at Dick and committed the murders after a night full of drinking and drug use.

Court documents said James came into the house of the Seminole County and strangled the child and sexually attacked it. Then he went to Dick's bedroom, where he wanted to have sex with her. He stabbed her to death, said the documents.

The now 63 -year -old James was sentenced to death in the murders in 1995 and also received prison terms for other charges.

While there were other problems, the application on Sunday concentrated by James' lawyer Dawn MacReady, who focused on his medical problems.

“At the time of his heart attack, James already recorded a cognitive decline, which was then tightened from the heart event by longer oxygen withdrawal,” the movement says. “For years, James suffered from a dementia process that was evaluated by several mental health experts. He experienced both a short and long -term memory loss, the recall of words and an unorganized process of thinking. Such deficits are a product of repeated headdreaks, extensive earlier drug and alcohol consumption and a recently fatal heart attack. “

In the submissions on Monday, the general prosecutor's office argued that the proof of James's drug and alcohol consumption and the resulting effects on the brain function was clearly known to him and his lawyer in the 1990s.

“James has been in the death cell since 1995 and he is currently 63 years old. It is not necessarily surprising that he is experiencing a spiritual decline, especially in view of his long -known drug abuse, paired with oxygen withdrawal, which James apparently experienced in 2023, more than a year before the … application was submitted, ”wrote the state's lawyers. “Accordingly, it is (the movement) prematurely. It is also unclear why James's claim that the conditions of the limitation were cruel and unusual, entitled to relief at this stage. This assertion does not question the validity of his beliefs or death sentences. It is both meritorious and prematurely. “