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Killer's execution is today
©Associated Press STARKE -- For the third time this year, Florida is preparing to execute a killer who has been on death row for more than two decades. Unless he receives a last-minute stay, Amos King, 48, is scheduled to die by injection at 6 p.m. today at Florida State Prison near Starke. King was condemned for murdering Natalie Brady, 68, in 1977 in her Tarpon Springs home and setting the place ablaze. Sunday in Clearwater, Circuit Judge Susan Schaeffer rejected three motions filed by King's attorneys. One motion requested new DNA tests, arguing that original testing by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was improperly done. Schaeffer also rejected the other motions seeking to stay the execution and to vacate King's death sentence. "We're not surprised, but determined still," attorney Peter Cannon said after the hearing Sunday. "We haven't finished yet." An appeal to the Florida Supreme Court would be filed Sunday night or Monday morning, he said. King was scheduled to die in February, but he received a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court. The court was considering the case of an Arizona inmate who was challenging the procedure in that state that allowed judges and not juries to impose the death sentence. Florida's law allows juries to recommend the death sentence, but the trial judge makes the ultimate decision. The Arizona law, similar to Florida's, was ruled unconstitutional in June, but the high court lifted its stay of execution. However, the Florida Supreme Court stayed his execution on July 8. But it ruled against King in the fall, and new execution dates were set. Last week, King received a stay from the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta, but the stay was dissolved Wednesday by a 5-4 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court. King's temporary reprieve involved his claim that a lawyer must be appointed to represent him in a clemency petition to the state. King has another appeal pending in which he is asking the Supreme Court if Florida's death sentencing law is invalid because it is similar to the unconstitutional Arizona law. Since Florida reinstated its death penalty in 1976, the state has executed 53 inmates. Since 1924, when the state took over executions from the counties, 250 inmates have died, including a federal prisoner who was executed by the state in 1948 for murder on the high seas. Florida's last execution occurred Oct. 9, when serial killer Aileen Wuornos died after dropping all her appeals.
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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