In accordance with the information that was published on the website of the state Supreme Court, DeSantis signed the death warrant for Michael Bernard Bell, who is 54 years old. The execution is set to take place on July 15 at Florida State Prison.
In the event that the state executes Bell by means of lethal injection and also carries out the execution of Thomas Gudinas, which is slated to take place on June 24th, this would be the highest number of executions in a single year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 following a decision by the United States Supreme Court that had banned its use.
A list compiled by the Florida Department of Corrections reveals that the state executed eight prisoners between the years 1984 and 2014.
According to the documents filed in the court, Bell was given a sentence of death for the shooting killings that occurred outside of a pub in Jacksonville in December 1993.
The victims were Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith. The two individuals were shot by Bell using an AK-47 rifle as they were getting into a vehicle.
According to the documents that were submitted in previous appeals to the Supreme Court of Florida and the United States Supreme Court, Bell was seeking retribution for the death of his brother, who had been murdered by West’s half-brother earlier in 1993.
In addition, according to the website of the Department of Corrections, Bell is currently serving 25-year sentences for three separate convictions of second-degree murder that are unconnected to the incident that occurred outside the pub.
Anthony Wainwright, who was convicted of kidnapping a woman in 1994 from the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie supermarket in Lake City and raping and murdering her in rural Hamilton County, was executed by the state three days prior to the issuance of the death warrant on Friday.
On May 23, DeSantis also signed a death warrant for Gudinas, who was found guilty of the murder of Michelle McGrath in May 1994.
McGrath had been out for a night of entertainment in downtown Orlando at the time of her death.
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By the time the body of McGrath was discovered in an alley at approximately 7:30 in the morning, it had been “savagely raped and severely beaten by the defendant with a blunt instrument,” according to a circuit judge who issued the sentence for Gudinas.
The counsel for Gudinas have requested that the execution be halted by the Florida Supreme Court; however, as of early Friday evening, the judges had not yet granted their request.
Additionally, the state carried out the executions of Glen Rogers on May 15th, Jeffrey Hutchinson on May 1st, Michael Tanzi on April 8th, Edward James on March 20th, and James Ford on February 13th earlier this year.
Concurrently, the state executed one prisoner in the year 2024 and six prisoners in the year 2023. During the years 2020, 2021, and 2022, the Department of Corrections did not carry out any executions, as indicated by the list.
