The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to halt next week’s scheduled execution of Victor Tony Jones in the 1990 murders of a couple in Miami-Dade County, rejecting arguments about abuse Jones suffered as a child at a notorious state reform school.
Attorneys for Jones, 64, contended that “newly discovered evidence” about his abuse at the now-shuttered Okeechobee School likely would lead to him receiving a life sentence in a retrial. That evidence stemmed from Jones and hundreds of other men receiving compensation this year from the state because of abuse at the Okeechobee School and another facility, the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.
But the Supreme Court, in a 5-1 decision, said arguments about the abuse were “procedurally barred.”
“The alleged abuse occurred nearly 50 years ago — and roughly 15 years before his trial — yet Jones did not raise it at trial or in any prior postconviction proceeding,” Wednesday’s opinion said. “Because Jones’ claim about any abuse he suffered at the Okeechobee School could have and should have been raised earlier, it is procedurally barred.”
The 23-page opinion also said that “any mitigation that Jones might offer at a retrial regarding the Okeechobee School would derive from the abuse itself —known to him since the 1970s —not from the 2025 eligibility letter (for compensation).”
“Even assuming that Jones’s eligibility for compensation under the program constitutes newly discovered evidence, Jones cannot establish that his eligibility for compensation or even a credible claim of abuse at the Okeechobee School is of such a nature that it would probably yield a life sentence on retrial,” said the opinion, shared by Chief Justice Carlos Muniz and Justices John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso.
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Justice Jorge Labarga dissented, though he did not issue an opinion. Justice Charles Canady was recused.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Aug. 29 signed a death warrant for Jones, who would become a modern-era record 13th inmate executed this year in Florida. Jones was sentenced to death for murdering his employers, 66-year-old Matilda Nestor and 67-year-old Jacob Nestor, at their business in December 1990, according to court documents.
“Mrs. Nestor was stabbed in the back of the neck, severing her aorta,” Wednesday’s opinion said. “Mr. Nestor was stabbed in the chest, puncturing his heart. Before succumbing to his injury, Mr. Nestor was able to retrieve his pistol and shoot Jones in the forehead. Police found Jones locked inside the building with the Nestors’ wallets, keys, and other belongings in his pockets. At the hospital, Jones admitted to a nurse that he killed the couple because they owed him money.”
Jones’ attorneys also unsuccessfully raised other issues at the Supreme Court, including that he has an intellectual disability and that putting him to death would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Attorneys for inmates under death warrants typically file last-ditch appeals at the U.S. Supreme Court. Jones is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Florida State Prison.
The Florida Catholic Conference on Tuesday released a letter it had sent to DeSantis asking for Jones’ sentence to be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“We must call attention to the fact that Mr. Jones is a survivor of abuse at the hand of the state at the Okeechobee School,” Michael Sheedy, the conference’s executive director, wrote in the letter. “It cannot be that with one hand the state pays out compensation to men abused and tortured as children in its care (abuse of which the jurors in this case were not told) while at the same time with its other hand puts one of these victims to death. To what degree did the abuse suffered by Mr. Jones and acknowledged by the attorney general contribute to the disturbed condition in which he committed his crimes? We appeal to your conscience, Governor. This extraordinary factor alone justifies commuting the death penalty to a sentence of life without parole.”
Before this year, Florida’s record for executions in a year during the modern era was eight in 1984 and 2014. The modern era represents the time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, after a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling halted it.
The state this year executed David Pittman on Sept. 17; Curtis Windom on Aug. 28; Kayle Bates on Aug. 19; Edward Zakrzewski on July 31; Michael Bell on July 15; 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.
