No Execution Tonight! Florida Supreme Court Says State Cannot Execute James Duckett… For Now

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It is Tuesday, March 31st.

The day James Duckett was supposed to be executed in Florida.

It will not happen.

Not today, at least.

And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.

Robes, this is a surprising case because of where it is,

who it is, and that there was a stay of execution.

So let's go ahead.

And I hate to say the word unpack all this,

but a scheduled execution tonight in Florida is not happening.

Yeah.

And it was surprising to have the Florida Supreme Court step in

and place a stay of execution for James Aaron Duckett's defense team

to have DNA that's been stored for nearly 40 years now

to be tested.

His attorney saying this could exonerate him.

He has maintained his innocence from the beginning.

And so the Supreme Court, the state Supreme Court stepped in

and said, let's get that tested.

OK.

We were on the edge of our seats last week.

This rarely happens.

It certainly doesn't happen in Florida.

But a court stepped in and said, hey, there's something relevant

enough that we think we shouldn't go through with the execution.

So roles, we were waiting standing by last Friday.

They said, we want to status update by five o'clock.

Sure enough, they got one by five o'clock on Friday.

And it didn't really help.

It didn't move the needle one way or another.

Yes, it was inconclusive.

And so immediately the state then files a petition

to the state Supreme Court saying, OK, we did what you said.

We put everything on pause.

We got the results and they do not exonerate James Duckett.

He has not been proven to be innocent.

There is no other suspect.

There's no other DNA.

And yes, it's inconclusive.

But it also doesn't exonerate.

So we would like to go forward with the planned execution

for today, March 31st at 6 p.m.

We would like James Aaron Duckett to die by lethal injection

as scheduled.

And honestly, yes, his defense team filed a motion saying,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Can we have another lab look at it?

I have to say, I didn't think they were going to side

with the defense.

And I am not exactly sure why.

They didn't explain a lot in their ruling,

but the Supreme Court, state Supreme Court,

when asked by the prosecutor to now lift the stay

and let the execution go through at 6 o'clock tonight,

the state Supreme Court said, no, our stay is going to stay

in place.

But Rose, they put another date on it

that I don't necessarily understand what they're waiting for.

But in a couple of days, they're expecting to hear back

from all parties.

That is correct.

On April 2nd, that is this Thursday.

So in just a, in two days, the circuit court is required

to now give an update by 5 p.m. or at 5 p.m.

is the way I believe it was worded.

And the only way I can imagine they could give an update

is if another lab is taking a look at the results.

The defense actually had a specific lab

that they had fought for initially

to actually do the testing and take a look at the DNA.

And we'll describe where this DNA came from and all that

for those of you who need to be caught up.

But the state said, no, we wanted it at our lab.

So the state's lab did it.

It's inconclusive.

And now the defense says, now can our lab take a stab at it?

So my understanding would be that, yes, another lab

is either retesting it or reviewing it

or somehow just another set of scientific guys

are on these results to see if it can, in fact,

exonerate, duck it.

Let's bottom line this thing is that a man

has been on death row for 40 years,

literally has his life in the balance

based on some DNA testing.

Now ropes, that is a big deal and a big headline,

the possibility that a death row

inmate could be exonerated.

However, ropes as big of a headline

as that seems to be, there are plenty of others

who just look at a guy who was desperate to stay alive

and now he's throwing anything he can up

against the wall to see if it might legally stick.

And look, the cynic in me says that exact same thing.

We see this all the time.

There's no guilty prisoners on death row.

Everyone's innocent, right?

Most people say I didn't do it.

Wasn't me.

It was this guy.

It was him.

It wasn't me.

Look, I have to at least consider the fact

that six out of the seven Florida State Supreme Court

justices opposed the state's request

to go forward with the execution.

That is significant in a state like Florida

and six out of seven.

That, to me, speaks volumes.

This wasn't a split decision.

Oh, does this not speak to, it does not.

There is nothing they suggested.

There's nothing you please tell me.

We've been researching this case for a while.

I don't see anything other than his own camp

that is Hoopn and Hollaring about an innocent man

because about to be put to death.

No, and look, everyone, and we have gone over

the evidence that was presented in court.

They claim it was all circumstantial.

It was the fact that he was last seen

with this 11-year-old girl.

And by the way, we are talking about,

we're talking about an 11-year-old girl

who was strangled, drowned, and raped in 1987.

And this officer, he was a police officer,

a, he was a rookie officer, correct?

James Aaron Duck.

He was a young guy, a new officer,

and he even admits to having seen

this 11-year-old girl the night she went missing.

She apparently left her home to go.

She told her mom she needed to get some pencils.

1030 at night.

She's seen with a 16-year-old boy

near this convenience store.

According to James Duckett and to I Witnesses,

he tells a little girl, and the 16-year-old

you guys are out, past her a few,

tells the 16-year-old to skid-addle

gets her in the back of his car.

She's never seen again.

That's damning right then and there.

The fact that he is the last known person

to have seen her alive.

Yeah.

Throw in the other stuff.

The other stuff is that her handprints

are on the hood of his car.

Okay.

The other evidence is that

there are tire tracks that are leading

to the lake where her body was found

the following day by a fisherman.

And the fact that there was a pubic hair

that they said matched his pubic hair.

They didn't have the DNA testing abilities

that they do now, and this is where we are.

There was some semen found on the 11-year-olds jeans.

And that semen has now been able to undergo

a type of testing that wasn't available

up until recently.

Okay.

Please put in context,

what you mean by recently.

Here's the context.

2024.

And this is significant.

According to police and prosecutors,

James Aaron Duckett was given the opportunity

to have that DNA tested with this new way of testing it.

And he declined the opportunity

to have that semen tested.

And it wasn't until Governor DeSantis

signed his death warrant

and his clock started ticking.

You got 30 days,

all of a sudden his defense team

in the last hour and few days

leading up to the execution said,

wait a minute, we want that DNA tested.

Well, I skipped it in the first place.

I'm not saying that sarcastically.

I'm saying, what was their legal reasoning

for why they did not want that DNA tested?

What was their logic?

I haven't seen a direct response to that.

I've only seen the prosecutor raise the exact question

that you did to the court saying,

I'm sorry,

but an innocent man would have asked for this

to be tested immediately

as soon as proper testing was available

and that in and of itself speaks for itself.

So has this been a case?

We've seen some cases.

I mean, what's the folks who get people off who take up?

The Innocence Project.

The Innocence Project.

This is not one of their cases.

No, thank you.

Nobody else is out there hooting and hollering

that a innocent man is about to be killed.

Now, is it possible?

I guess, Robes,

but we are now being inundated at this point.

If you were sweetheart,

look, there's a way that innocent people act.

And they're not quiet for 40 years.

They are not.

It's interesting that you say that

because I actually did a deeper dive

and was reading what the sheriff said about his deputy.

And look, police aren't want,

aren't aren't a group of folks

who look to their own to look for suspects

or to be suspicious of.

But he said it was his rookie deputy

who he was on the scene with him the next day.

He said the way officer Duckett was acting

was so strange that he started to investigate.

He said he was uncomfortable.

He wasn't curious about how she died.

He was shifty in a way that he felt like made him suddenly suspicious.

I thought that was interesting that his own sheriff

on the day her body was found started getting.

He said the way he was talking about how he was the last person to see him

sounded like a rehearsed nervous story.

And it raised a red flag for him to dig deeper.

And that is how the investigation into Duckett began

was because of his sheriff's suspicions.

It took five months for them to actually bring charges and arrest him.

But he said that very day that that little girl's body was found.

He thought, hmm.

I thought that was of note as well.

That does not guilt make just because somebody had a good feeling.

Sure, but it is relevant.

And I do think I hadn't looked to see

but when Duckett was sentenced to death

before he was sentenced to death, I should mention James Duckett

actually in court records said this to the judge.

So he has always maintained his innocence.

He said, I did not do this.

When the person who did this repeats it,

I want to see the face of the person telling the victim's mother,

father, sister, brother, I am sorry.

We thought we had the right one before.

That's interesting.

That's what he said right before sentencing.

He was defiant.

Every prosecutor in judge in the country said,

yeah, that sounds familiar.

I heard that before right before I sent a guy off to a life sentence.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Everybody on cell block D is innocent.

Everybody.

So fine, there are exceptions.

They should be listened to.

But at some point, Robes,

when do you stop all the back and forth and the madness?

We don't have, we have our issues with the death penalty.

Yes, but we also have penalties or problems with it being delayed.

Justice, this is justice.

Why are we waiting 40 years?

Why are we waiting 42, 45 so we can get every lab in the country

to test this DNA that he had 40 years to test?

And yet you made the point.

Look, if it's just a matter of a day or two more for another lab

to take a look at it, why not do that?

And it seems like that is where the Florida State Supreme Court

fell on this.

It's better to be safe than sorry.

There's no undoing an execution.

And so why not push it a little forward?

So we're hopefully going to get some more answers about what will happen

to duck it given where we are.

We're literally in limbo right now in just a matter of days

on Thursday, but when we come back, we're going to talk about

what duck it has been doing for these past 30 days.

Since DeSantis signed his death warrant,

he's been writing all about it on a website.

Welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ.

The execution is off.

For now of James Aaron Duckett, he was scheduled to die tonight

by lethal injection for the rape and murder of an 11 year old girl

nearly 40 years ago.

The Florida State Supreme Court said,

let's give it a few more days after the first DNA tests from the case

came back inconclusive and the defense asked for another lab

to take a look at the results before making the decision

about when or if to actually follow through with the execution of James

Aaron Duckett.

And so a whole host of events take place once a governor signs a death

warrant that I really didn't know.

Obviously, this is all very rehearsed and scheduled,

but I didn't realize the day the death warrant is signed action is taken.

Yeah, you're isolated.

This is and they keep an eye on you.

This is a totally different it shifts.

And right what is it they you their own death or over 30 40 years.

But they end up not necessarily an isolation that long certainly in Florida.

In Florida.

So yes, so he actually Duckett actually there's a there's a website out there

called prison writers and I look they do vet.

This writing so as to not upset or harm any victims families out there,

but they have some editors who have journalism backgrounds and they make

sure that the writing is non offensive,

but he was allowed to post through this website what it's been like for him.

These past 30 days.

And so he said on February 27th, that is when DeSantis signed his death warrant.

He said literally two vans pulled in a few minutes later,

a door to the wing opened up the warden called his name and said,

it's time the governor has signed your warrant.

So he got handcuffs shackles waste chain.

And he was escorted past all his friends that he had spent all this time

and death row with saying goodbye and going into a van heading to death

war death watch basically where he had to sign copies of his death warrant

and go to the queuing where he now, yes, had a plexiglass, a bunk,

a locker, a small table, a toilet, a sink,

but he had to let go of all of his limited personal property,

including his phone, access to internet, all of that gone.

Yeah, the execution still might go through.

I mean, the execution still might happen.

I'm not sure how active, how long the warrants they active.

I think they go a little while.

I think they anticipate these things.

Do they not?

Isn't the warrant active?

They don't have to sign another one, do they?

I don't believe the governor.

No, once you go past the date though, I don't know when they extended it to you.

Know how sometimes they extend the death warrant

where they give themselves some time in case there's some sort of issue.

Usually only a day, I thought.

Yeah, I'm not sure how this is going to work,

but he is still sitting there from what we understand

because it is in limbo right now in this cue block,

basically, or queuing is what it's called.

And it's just interesting to hear him talk about what it's like

in these final days for death row inmates.

He was expecting it to be about 30 days.

He said, I miss emailing.

I mostly miss music.

The silence is constant.

I miss seeing outside.

The two windows are painted over.

You can only see their outline.

He says that an officer is stationed in front of his cell 24-7,

logging everything he does.

And he is allowed to write on this tablet,

which then his words were able to be published.

But he has a space where he says final words

because he is preparing to die.

He said, my legal team continues to fight.

They have not stopped since the warrant was issued.

But this is where I say goodbye to those who have read my work.

I wanted to write this last piece

because as I see it, it's time to keep me in your prayers

and thank you for the support.

I just didn't know that there was even an outlet

for inmates like this to just basically communicate

with the outside world about what it's like to be on death row

or what it's like to await your execution date.

I guess some people might find it, I don't know,

interesting, fascinating part of someone's story.

I don't know, but there might be others looking at that

and find it disgusting.

Why do they get this out?

Why do they get to put a message out?

But they have freedom of speech.

I guess they shouldn't be kept from speaking.

They are allowed to profit from their crimes.

So there are some types of rules put in place.

But I just wonder, as you were reading,

I just wondered with the mom of the victim feels

about him having a message.

I wonder if she's even aware.

Does she even check in?

I just, I don't know, he's writing

as the sympathetic figure in this whole thing.

If he's an innocent man, obviously,

he's a sympathetic figure.

But Robes, I just haven't studied to the case,

but I have seen enough with folks

who are studying this case,

who do have opinions on this case.

It's just not that groundswell of innocence

that's being out there for the time.

Yes, to your point, it's one thing

to proclaim your innocence.

It's another thing to have a whole other group of folks

who devote their lives to trying to do their best

to make sure that people who are innocent,

who haven't been properly represented

or who haven't had a fair trial,

actually make sure that they and their rights are protected.

Yes, there's no group that has come to his aid

or have come out to say he didn't do it.

He's an innocent man.

He's pretty much at this point,

the only person other than his attorneys

who say he's innocent.

So we should see, again, Robes, I'd see it through.

I mean, not to the point of being unreasonable,

if you wanna, yes, give him the lab, let them test.

Then it comes back inconclusive, what do we do then?

Well, since we don't know for sure

then the least you could do is commute his sentence.

Is that what they're setting up?

This could probably, Robes, a media narrative.

This could all be a PR campaign to get us talking about it,

to get more people interested in this thing,

to where there is a ground swell of support for him

and attention for him.

And maybe you get some big names on TV talking about him.

Who knows that lawyers are doing the job,

trying to keep a man alive.

And I can't fault them for that.

Wow, I get it too, I get it too.

And he talks about clemency and what does clemency mean?

And that's what he's actually seeking at this point.

But he said it's a chance to convince those in charge

who you are, not making excuses for why you were here,

but showing true, honest change

by presenting testimony, evidences, witnesses,

and making the argument, I am not now who I was then.

And I guess he's talking about other crimes,

when I read that he's writing about what clemency means

and how it's not being extended to inmates in Florida.

If he's talking about himself, he's claiming

he was innocent from the beginning.

So that's a strange premise to write about.

Try it all, throw everything at the wall.

And that's what it seems like.

That is what it seems like.

Now you should make sense, knock yourself out.

But how, just how far?

Did we take this thing, Roops?

How far is it allowed?

And to his argument about clemency, Roops,

what are we supposed to do to folk?

If you have a 10-year sentence and then you go back

to the judge in three years and say, look, I'm a changed man.

I shouldn't be here for 10 years because I have been changed.

Will we listen to that person?

Or would we say, no, you need to serve your time

as justice has been laid out for what you did?

Take James Duncan.

You're saying, I shouldn't have to see through

the punishment I was given for my crime

because now I'm a different man than I was.

That ain't how it works.

It's just not.

And that's, you gotta take issue with it, but Roops,

I compare him to anybody else in jail

who's gonna say, hey, I'm different now,

so that sentence doesn't count.

No, you're being punished for what you did

at the time when you did it.

Yep.

I know you make a very good call,

and I think a lot of people feel exactly the same way

as you, it'll be interesting to see

a, what the results are, come Thursday

if there are new results coming,

and b, what happens next to James Duncan?

This is the one I was just thinking.

Okay, Roops, if we get word,

the execution is not going to go through

and he's gonna be spared

and he's just gonna get life in prison,

or if they go through with the execution.

Did you have a preference, no, no, not that.

How do you feel either way, right?

If they decide to execute this man,

if they decide not to,

my first thought went to the mom of a victim

who wants this guy executed.

And so I, to think his sentence is commuted

and we save a life is something I am on board with,

but I have a problem being on board with it

when the mother of the 11-year-old

who was a drown rate says, I need this justice.

I have a hard time going against that.

I know, we always, I do think that there should be

wait given to the victim's family.

I think ultimately what their wishes are

should be considered alongside the sentencing,

but at this point, we just know that he was, in fact,

sentenced to death.

We will see what the Florida State Supreme Court

decides on Thursday at 5 p.m.

April 7th.

Sorry, what did I say?

No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just confirming.

The death warrant actually stays active for another week.

Oh, April 7th.

Oh, wow.

They can kill him anytime they want you.

Okay, wow, so that's interesting.

So April 2nd is when we're going to hear next

from the State Supreme Court,

and that means they would have five days

to actually carry out this execution

if they choose to do so.

I'm sure the state is like, yep, we are rare and go.

I'm sure, well, the prosecutor definitely

signaled that they were.

So, of course, we will continue to keep our eye on this story

and bring you the very latest.

In the meantime, though, thank you for listening to us.

I made me robot alongside TJ Holmes.

We will talk to you soon.

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