RAIFORD, Fla.
– Florida matched a modern-era record for executions in a year when Michael Bell was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday evening for the 1993 murders of two people outside a Jacksonville bar.
Bell, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. at Florida State Prison, becoming the eighth inmate executed this year in the state. That matched the eight executions carried out in 1984 and 2014, the most since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 after a U.S. Supreme Court decision halted executions in 1972.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis also has signed a death warrant for the scheduled July 31 execution of Edward Zakrzewski, who was convicted of murdering his wife and two children in 1994 in Okaloosa County.
Tuesday’s execution came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-ditch appeals by Bell’s attorneys. Bell was sentenced to death for using an AK-47 rifle to murder Jimmie West and Tamecka Smith as they got into a car outside the bar in December 1993.
“Thank you for not letting me spend the rest of my life in prison,” Bell said when a Department of Corrections official asked if he wanted to make a last statement.
Smith’s family released a statement after the execution, saying it was “considered somewhat of a closure,” though it said the grief “will last a lifetime.”
“The justice system may not have the capabilities of bringing back our lost loved one,” the statement said. “But, due to the acts of violence, perpetrated in an unhuman form and fashion, justice was served.”
(Editor’s note: Years of court documents have identified Smith as Tamecka Smith, though the family’s statement Tuesday used the spelling Tomecka Smith.)
Court documents said Bell was accused of killing West and Smith while seeking revenge for the death of his brother, who had been killed by West’s half-brother, Theodore Wright, earlier in 1993. Bell did not know that Wright had sold the car to West before the shooting, according to the documents.
After DeSantis signed a death warrant on June 13, Bell’s attorneys tried to prevent the execution in state and federal courts. They focused on witnesses who, after the death warrant was signed, recanted testimony that had helped convict Bell in the murders.
For example, Henry Edwards and Charles Jones, who were witnesses during Bell’s 1995 trial, recanted testimony that they had given in exchange for favorable treatment from police on other matters, Bell’s attorneys argued. They recanted the testimony to investigators for Bell.
But during a June 23 hearing in Duval County circuit court, witnesses invoked their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination instead of detailing the recanted testimony because of concerns they could face perjury charges.
In a petition filed at the U.S. Supreme Court, Bell’s attorneys wrote that the “spector of perjury, introduced by the state (prosecutors) and magnified by the trial court (circuit judge), deprived Bell of crucial evidence.” They argued the execution should be halted.
“Witness after witness was permitted to invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege and refuse to answer crucial questions, sabotaging Bell’s last opportunity to bring to light new evidence prior to his execution,” the petition said.
But Circuit Judge Jeb Branham, the Florida Supreme Court, federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the execution. While the U.S. Supreme Court did not explain its reasoning, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan supported granting a stay of execution.
Bell woke at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and had a last meal of an omelette, bacon, home fries and orange juice, Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Ted Veerman said.
The execution process started at 6:09 p.m., when a curtain rose in the execution chamber, allowing witnesses in an adjoining room to see Bell strapped to a gurney. Bell repeatedly raised his head and looked through a window at the people in the other room. He also appeared to talk with the Department of Corrections official who oversaw the execution. Along with reporters and department officials, 22 witnesses attended.
By 6:12 p.m., Bell appeared to have lost consciousness, and a medical worker came into the execution chamber at 6:24 p.m. to check his pupils and chest to see if he was still alive. He was pronounced dead a minute later.
The state this year also executed Thomas Gudinas on June 24; Anthony Wainwright on June 10; Glen Rogers on May 15; Jeffrey Hutchinson on May 1; Michael Tanzi on April 8; Edward James on March 20; and James Ford on Feb. 13.
