State Florida (USA) executed yesterday, Wednesday, Louis Bernard Gaskin56 years, for a double murder he committed in 1989 and for which he was sentenced to death without unanimous jury.
Gaskin was declared dead at 18:15 (local time) after receiving lethal injection at the Florida State Penitentiary, located in the city of Rayford (North), as notified by the State Department of Prisons.
this is the second execution which is being held in Florida so far this year and after exhausting all appeals filed by the defense to suspend it, including one filed on April 6 with the U.S. Supreme Court which was dismissed.
This execution takes place six weeks after the prisoner Donald Dilbeck59 years old, was executed for two murders in the first degree, the first of which was committed with a firearm in 1979 as a minor, and the other with stab wounds in 1990.
If the execution Darryl B. Barwickwhose death warrant was signed on April 4 by Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantisIt will be the shortest time the state has carried out three executions since 2014 under fellow Republican governor Rick Scott.
This is also the third execution in Florida since 2019 (none between 2020 and 2022) and number 101 since the death penalty was reinstated in that state, in 1976.
“Ninja Assassin”
Louis Bernard Gaskinnicknamed the “Ninja killer” for wearing black ninja clothing when committing crimes, was sentenced to death on December 20, 1989 for the murders of 56-year-old Robert Sturmfels and 55-year-old Georgette Sturmfels, whom he shot dead with a rifle at the victims’ home located in Flagler County, in the northeast of the state.
Police found at the home of Gaskin, who confessed to being the author of the murders, money, jewelry, and objects that had been stolen from the victims’ home and which he had at the time intended to give his girlfriend as Christmas presents.
The Florida superior court also dismissed Gaskin’s defense claim for a “partially unconstitutional” death sentence, given the lack of unanimity in the jury’s recommendation (8 in favor and 4 against).
Since 2017 in Florida a unanimous jury is required for a judge to decide on the death penalty, which is in line with what the U.S. Supreme Court has found that simple majority convictions are unconstitutional, as happened with Gaskin.
He Supreme Florida He pointed out that the test of retroactive judgment, known as Hurst, which led to mandatory unanimity of jurors for the death penalty in that state, which currently has over 300 death row inmates, three of them women, does not apply in this case.
In 2020 Supreme Florida ruled that unanimous jury recommendations were not needed to sentence murder defendants to death.
Since 1973, more than 190 people have been released from death row in the United States on evidence of their innocence, and Florida, with 30 on death row, the state with the most, followed by Illinois (22) and Texas (16). (EFE)
Source: RPP
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