December 13
FLORIDA----execution
Florida executes Miami murderer Jose Jimenez after last-ditch appeal denied by
U.S. Supreme Court
A man convicted of fatally beating and stabbing a South Florida woman 26 years
ago during a burglary has been executed.
Authorities say 55-year-old Jose Antonio Jimenez was pronounced dead at 9:48
p.m. Thursday after a lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke.
Jimenez was convicted of the October 1992 killing of 63-year-old Phyllis Minas
in her North Miami apartment.
Authorities say Jimenez was burglarizing Minas' apartment when she came home
and surprised him. Investigators said Minas, a longtime employee of the
Miami-Dade Court Clerk's office, was stabbed 8 times.
Authorities say Jimenez is the 28th inmate executed in Florida since Gov. Rick
Scott took office in 2011. That's the most of any Florida governor since the
death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Jimenez also was convicted of a prior burglary and 2nd-degree murder in the
1990 death of another woman in Miami Beach.
Over the years, the inmate has filed various appeals. In an appeal filed with
the U.S. Supreme Court this week, Jimenez and his attorneys said detectives who
investigated the case gave "false or, at best, misleading testimony," and that
several key police reports were lost.
Additionally, his attorneys asked the court to stay the execution and consider
whether Florida's lethal injection protocol constitutes cruel and unusual
punishment that violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The lawyers point to the February execution of Eric Branch using the same drugs
in which experts later concluded he felt significant pain, including screaming
out the word "murderers!" several times as he thrashed about on the gurney.
Gov. Rick Scott signed the death warrant for Jimenez last summer and scheduled
the execution for August. The Supreme Court stayed that, but lifted the stay in
October.
According to corrections officials, Jimenez would be the 28th inmate executed
in Florida since Scott took office in 2011 if the procedure is carried out
Thursday evening. That would be more than any other Florida governor since the
death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Jimenez becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Florida and the 97th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in
1979.
Only Texas (558), Virginia (113), and Oklahoma (112) have executed
more inmated than Florida since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA
on July 2, 1976.
Jimenez becomes the 25th and final condemned person to be put to death this
year in the USA and the 1,490th overall since the nation resumed
executions on Janaury 17, 1977. There were 23 executions carried out in the USA
in 2017.
(sources: Orlando Sentinel & Rick Halperin)
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