The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday issued a temporary stay of next week’s scheduled execution of James Aren Duckett, a former police officer convicted of the rape and murder of an 11 year-old girl in 1987.
The majority of the court agreed to the stay as Duckett awaits postconviction DNA testing, which he claims will “provide newly discovered evidence of his actual innocence,” the court motion states.
The stay is pending further court action and directs the state to address the status of the DNA testing by 5 p.m. on Friday. The test results are expected to be available Friday.
Chief Justice Carlos Muniz and Justices Jorge Labarga, John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso approved of the hold, for now, on the execution.
Justice Adam Tanenbaum dissented, arguing the stay is premature as the scheduled DNA testing is expected to be completed prior to the scheduled March 31 execution.
“The onus undoubtedly is on the State to ensure this happens, and we should trust that the State will,” Tanenbaum wrote. “If the results cannot be obtained in time, we should trust the Governor to stay the execution on his own.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant on Feb. 27. The warrant period is effective until April 7.
According to court documents, Duckett, 68, was a police officer for the Lake County city of Mascotte in May 1987 when Teresa McAbee was last seen getting into his patrol car outside a convenience store. Her body was found in a lake less than a mile away. She had been sexually battered, strangled, and drowned.
Tanenbaum wrote that Duckett was convicted and sentenced in 1990, was offered a chance 20 years ago to test the DNA sample now in question that was found on McAbee’s jeans, and that a new method of DNA testing Duckett sought has been available since at least 2024.
Duckett “failed to explain why he waited until the Governor signed the warrant to pursue all of this, which he clearly could have done sooner with the exercise of some diligence,” Tanenbaum wrote.
Tanenbaum also questioned Duckett’s other claim that challenged the constitutionality of the death warrant signed by DeSantis and set a compressed schedule for post-conviction proceedings.
“The trial court denied the first claim because, obviously, the defendant failed to provide a factual basis for it --- the defendant being unable to point to any actual DNA evidence demonstrating his innocence,” Tanenbaum wrote in his dissent. “The trial court denied the second claim because, the court explained, the defendant had years to pursue the innocence claim he was then asserting but simply had made the ‘tactical choice’ not to --- making the warrant process no surprise at all.”
