Method was challenged in the past
Supreme Court says it already ruled on issue
Florida has executed 20 death row prisoners by lethal injection since 2000, but not without controversy.
Bennie Demps of Lake County was executed in 2000, but before dying he complained he was being "butchered" when prison officials had to do minor surgery to insert the needle.
That led to an appeal by death row inmate Thomas Provenzano of Orlando, which was rejected.
Angel Diaz, who was executed Wednesday, had challenged both the lethal injection statute and the way the poison is administered, saying they violated the constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
But the Florida high court had already ruled against death row inmate Terry Sims on those issues and in trial court cases, including Gainesville serial killer Danny Rolling, Arthur Rutherford and Clarence Hill.
Hill, Rutherford and Rolling's attorneys cited a 2005 research article that stated Florida's methods might subject prisoners to pain.
"We found the study to be 'inconclusive' and not requiring an evidentiary hearing," the Florida Supreme Court said in its rejection of Diaz's death sentence appeal.
The high court also rejected Diaz claim of "newly discovered evidence" in a doctor's study. The "new" information not only was based on research dating to 1950, but was "speculative," the court opinion said.
Diaz also cited the Morales case in California as new evidence, but the court said it ruled on the same issues in Sims.
Supreme Court says it already ruled on issue
Florida has executed 20 death row prisoners by lethal injection since 2000, but not without controversy.
Bennie Demps of Lake County was executed in 2000, but before dying he complained he was being "butchered" when prison officials had to do minor surgery to insert the needle.
That led to an appeal by death row inmate Thomas Provenzano of Orlando, which was rejected.
Angel Diaz, who was executed Wednesday, had challenged both the lethal injection statute and the way the poison is administered, saying they violated the constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
But the Florida high court had already ruled against death row inmate Terry Sims on those issues and in trial court cases, including Gainesville serial killer Danny Rolling, Arthur Rutherford and Clarence Hill.
Hill, Rutherford and Rolling's attorneys cited a 2005 research article that stated Florida's methods might subject prisoners to pain.
"We found the study to be 'inconclusive' and not requiring an evidentiary hearing," the Florida Supreme Court said in its rejection of Diaz's death sentence appeal.
The high court also rejected Diaz claim of "newly discovered evidence" in a doctor's study. The "new" information not only was based on research dating to 1950, but was "speculative," the court opinion said.
Diaz also cited the Morales case in California as new evidence, but the court said it ruled on the same issues in Sims.
Demps was sentenced to death in the 1970s in the infamous "Trunk Murders" case, in which he put three people into the trunk of a car and riddled it with bullets from an AK-47. That sentence was commuted to life, along with other death sentences across the nation, by the U.S. Supreme Court, which temporarily put a halt to all executions.
But Demps was sentenced to death again after killing a fellow prisoner.
Local News Editor Frank Stanfield may be reached at frank.stanfield@starbanner.com or at (352) 867-4105.
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