More than three decades after he murdered a Seminole County woman and her 8-year-old granddaughter, Edward James was put to death by lethal injection Thursday night at Florida State Prison.
James, 63, was pronounced dead at 8:15 p.m. and became the second person executed in Florida this year. Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected attempts by James’ attorney to halt the execution.
Family members of the victims, Betty Dick and her granddaughter Toni Neuner, watched the execution from a viewing room and spoke to reporters later about the losses they suffered in the 1993 murders.
“We have been dealing with this for over 31 years,” said Brenda Teed, whose mother was killed. “It has hit us in places you can’t imagine.”
Jere Pearson Jr., whose sister was Toni Neuner, described Dick as a “rock” and said the family “lost generations” because of James’ actions.
“Toni never had a chance at life,” Pearson said. “What he put her through that night was horrific.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Feb. 18 issued a death warrant for James, who rented a room from Dick and committed the murders after a night of drinking and drug use.
Court documents said James came to the Seminole County home and strangled the child and sexually assaulted her. He then went to Dick’s bedroom, where he intended to have sex with her. He stabbed her to death, the documents said.
The lethal-injection procedure lasted 15 minutes, which is about the same amount of time as in past executions. James’ chest could be seen trembling about two minutes into the process, which also has occurred in past executions.
When a Florida Department of Corrections official asked James if he had a last statement, he replied, “No, I don’t.” Moments earlier, he briefly raised his head and appeared to look at witnesses who were behind a window in the viewing room.
James did not have visitors Thursday as the execution neared, Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Paul Walker said. James woke at 7 a.m. and ate a last meal of fried catfish, potato salad, hush puppies, cookies, soda and coffee.
The state executed James Ford on Feb. 13 in the 1997 murders of a couple in Charlotte County. Also, DeSantis on March 10 signed a death warrant for Michael Tanzi, who was convicted in the 2000 murder of a woman in Monroe County. Tanzi is scheduled to be executed April 8.
The death warrant in James’ case touched off a flurry of legal battling. His attorney, Dawn Macready, went to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Florida Supreme Court and a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week rejected appeals aimed at halting the execution.
The Florida Supreme Court upheld a decision by Seminole County Circuit Judge Melanie Chase. In the state-court cases, James’ attorney argued, in part, that drug and alcohol use since childhood, multiple head injuries and a near-fatal heart attack in 2023 helped lead to James suffering “cognitive decline” and that executing him would violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Macready said in a Florida Supreme Court brief that James’ brain was deprived of oxygen during the heart attack at Union Correctional Institution. The brief said results of a CT scan after the heart attack should be treated as “newly discovered evidence” to bolster arguments about halting the execution.
In court documents, Macready also pointed to a non-unanimous jury recommendation before James was sentenced to death and a lengthy period after his conviction and sentencing when he was not represented by an attorney. A judge sentenced James to death after receiving an 11-1 jury recommendation.
“The state of Florida continues to be an extreme outlier when it comes to nonunanimous jury recommendations, thereby rendering Mr. James’ death sentence and impending execution in violation of the (U.S. Constitution) Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment,” Macready wrote Monday in a motion for a stay filed at the U.S. Supreme Court. “Nonunanimous jury recommendations do not comport with the evolving standards of decency; and executing an individual like Mr. James whose death sentence was imposed by a nonunanimous jury recommendation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.”
The Florida Attorney General’s Office urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the request for a stay and a related request for additional legal proceedings.
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