Arguing that convicted killer Kayle Bates has “exhaustively litigated and relitigated his judgment and death sentence” for the past 43 years, the state Attorney General’s Office on Monday said the Florida Supreme Court should reject efforts to halt Bates’ scheduled Aug. 19 execution.
The state filed a series of documents after Bates’ lawyers last week asked the Supreme Court to block the execution. Bates, 67, was sent to Death Row for the 1982 stabbing death of Janet White, who was abducted from the State Farm insurance office in Bay County where she worked.
One of the documents Monday said the Supreme Court should “allow true finality in this case.”
“Bates forfeited his right to live when he brutally stabbed a young woman to death after kidnapping, robbing and attempting to sexually batter her,” the state argued. “The simple truth is Bates has been living on borrowed time for decades while his victims awaited the justice they are now entitled to under our Constitution. There is no more time left for Bates to borrow.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis on July 18 signed a death warrant for Bates, who would be the 10th inmate executed this year in Florida. The death warrant touched off attempts by Bates’ lawyers in state and federal courts to block the execution.
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Bates’ lawyers went to the Florida Supreme Court after Bay County Circuit Judge Dustin Stephenson on Wednesday turned down their arguments. Meanwhile, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected separate arguments.
In a brief filed Friday at the Florida Supreme Court, Bates’ lawyers contended that putting him to death by lethal injection would be a “final, manifest injustice in a case marred by many injustices.”
The lawyers argued, in part, that that a 9-3 jury recommendation that led to Bates’ death sentence was based on a “fatal untruth.” The brief said jurors were misled to believe Bates could be released on parole in 12 years if he was not sentenced to death.
“The trial court and the state (prosecutors) denied the jury truthful information necessary to a realistic understanding of Mr. Bates’ potential sentences,” the brief said.
Bates’ lawyers also argued he was mentally ill at the time of the murder and that his “organic brain damage” was not considered.
“This was not a missed objection or a failure to ask a question,” the brief said. “It was an utter lack of consideration for a compelling form of mitigation that has long been used to find capital punishment inappropriate.”
But in responding Monday, the state’s attorneys said such issues have been part of decades of litigation surrounding Bates. The attorneys described the arguments as “untimely” and “procedurally barred” and said they didn’t have merit.
In addressing the brain damage issue, for example, the state’s response said, “If a manifest injustice occurred, the proper time to raise it was decades ago and certainly not after the signing of a (death) warrant. The state has been marshaling its resources for decades and the victims have endured the prolonged pain of waiting for justice. The only manifest injustice here would be allowing Bates to raise a long-untimely claim.”
