State supreme court delays execution

Due to questions on lethal injection, evidence-rigging by police

By Stephen Flanagan Jackson

A black man with hands outside the bars of a prison cell

The anonymous wielder of the hypodermic needle and the syringe full of deadly drugs will have to wait to collect his $150 executioner fee from the Florida State Prison system.

Jose Antonio Jiminez, a two-time killer of Miami ladies in the early 1990s, was granted an “indefinite” stay by the Florida Supreme Court late Friday afternoon, August 10, four days before his appointment with death at the Florida State Prison in Bradford County.

Jiminez, 30 at the time of his conviction, has been cooped up on death row for 25 years since a Miami jury found him guilty in the brutal multiple stabbing of 63-year-old Phyllis Miñas in her apartment after she walked in on Jiminez, allegedly a cocaine addict and high school dropout, burglarizing her home. While he was awaiting trial in that case, Jiminez was convicted, but not given the death sentence, in a similar homicide in 1990 of another Miami woman, Marie Debas.

 Randomly asked about the capital punishment administered by the state of Florida, South Shore residents offered a mixed response recently: Some in favor of capital punishment and some against the state taking a life even if for punishment or retribution.

Rabbi Carla Freedman of the Beth Israel Congregation in Sun City Center said, “In my opinion, capital punishment is one of the things in the Hebrew Bible that we should reject, given the evolution of human thinking, values and capabilities over the last 3,000 years.”

 Freedman went on to say, “Jewish tradition has done so for about 2,000 years, holding that the state has no more business taking a life than an individual has. The fundamental respect for human life should override vengeful and/or punitive state or personal reasons.”

Many residents of Apollo Beach, Ruskin, Sun City Center and Gibsonton, when approached briefly in public, wished to remain anonymous but felt like that in the view of Jiminez’s conviction in two killings, he has forfeited his right to live and should be executed if he was found gullty of murder.

“The execution should take place within 30 days of a murder conviction in a case like this one,” said one man.

Another woman responded by asking, “What if it were your mother or wife or daughter Jiminez killed? I think you, as I would, could accept the death penalty.”

According to Malcolm S. Clements, pastor of First Baptist Church in Gibsonton, “They that take the life of another has taken that person’s right to live. They have also deprived their family and loved ones of their life together.

“The question is, what right do they have to live when they have willingly deprived another of their gift of life?

“Yes, they can find forgiveness with God before they die, and I pray that they do,” said Clements.

Pastor David R. Allman of the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Sun City Center, responded thusly to the difficult question about the pros and cons of capital punishment:

“Here is how I have been able to boil it down. It was even tougher than I thought. There is so much more that could be said. I hope this helps,” said Allman, adding: “Lutherans join those who cry out against violence, and grieve with the family and friends of victims. The ELCA does not support the death penalty, yet we acknowledge the diversity of opinion within our denomination. We believe God is merciful and holds all of society responsible to ensure justice for everyone.”

In Jiminez’s case, the Florida Supreme Court’s order Friday set a schedule for briefs to be filed by Jiminez’s lawyer and the state, ending with an August 28 deadline for reply briefs to be filed. “Oral argument, if necessary, will be scheduled at a later date,” the order said. 

Jiminez’s attorney, in a last-minute appeal August 10, successfully argued that the drug etomidate, used in a February 2018 execution in Florida possibly caused the executed man to scream out in pain just seconds before dying. State prosecutors question that theory. 

 The other reason the Florida Supreme Court granted the stay or delay (or perhaps no execution ever) was Jiminez’s attorney’s presentation of newly found evidence that two of the Miami police officers testifying in Jiminez’s trial mishandled the evidence in an effort to obtain a conviction and a subsequent death sentence. The end result could be a call for a retrial or the death sentence being thrown out.

The Jiminez execution would have been the 28th with a death warrant signed by Governor Rick Scott, the most of any governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Since 1976, the state has executed 96 convicted murderers; 346 offenders, including Jiminez, are on death row. In Florida, convicted killers can choose execution by “Old Sparky” the electric chair, or by lethal injection.