ST. PETERSBURG – Florida is making ready to execute a male convicted of strangling his wife and brutally murdering a different female several years earlier, a deadly injection that’s expected to continue on timetable following he dropped all lawful appeals and mentioned he wishes to accept his punishment.
James Phillip Barnes, 61, is scheduled to die by deadly injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at Florida Point out Jail in Starke. He would be the fifth person put to demise in the state this 12 months.
Barnes was serving a lifetime sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife, 44-year-old Linda Barnes, when he wrote letters in 2005 to a condition prosecutor boasting accountability for the killing many years earlier of Patricia “Patsy” Miller, a nurse who lived in a condominium in Melbourne, alongside Florida’s east coastline.
Barnes represented himself in court docket hearings wherever he made available no protection, pleaded responsible to killing Miller and did not attempt to seek out a lifestyle sentence fairly than the loss of life penalty. Miller, who was 41 when Barnes killed her, experienced experienced some unspecified damaging interactions with him, according to a jailhouse job interview he gave to movie director Werner Herzog.
“There ended up several functions that happened (with Miller). I felt terribly humiliated, that is all I can say,” Barnes mentioned in the interview.
Barnes killed Miller at her household on April 20, 1988. When he pleaded guilty, Barnes informed the choose that just after breaking into Miller’s device, “I raped her two times. I tried to strangle her to death. I strike her head with a hammer and killed her and I set her mattress on fire,” in accordance to courtroom information.
There was also DNA proof linking Barnes to Miller’s killing. Barnes pleaded guilty to killing her and was sentenced to dying on Dec. 13, 2007. He also pleaded responsible to sexual battery, arson, and theft with an assault and battery.
Barnes killed his wife in 1997 following she found out that he was dealing medicines. Her entire body was observed stuffed in a closet soon after she was strangled, courtroom information clearly show. Barnes has claimed to have killed at minimum two other individuals but has in no way been charged in individuals circumstances.
Barnes experienced been in and out of prison considering that his teenage a long time, together with convictions for grand theft, forgery, burglary and trafficking in stolen assets.
In the Miller situation, point out legal professionals appointed to symbolize Barnes filed first appeals, such as just one that led to mental competency evaluations. Two medical practitioners located that Barnes had indicators of character dysfunction with “borderline antisocial and sociopathic capabilities.” Nevertheless, they pronounced him capable to comprehend his authorized condition and plead responsible, and his convictions and death sentence have been upheld.
Soon after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant in June, a Brevard County choose granted Barnes’ movement to drop all appeals involving mitigating evidence these types of as his psychological condition and stated “that he needed to acknowledge duty for his actions and to proceed to execution (his death) without the need of any hold off,” courtroom documents demonstrate.
Even though abnormal, condemned inmates from time to time don’t go after each individual legal avenue to stay clear of execution. The Dying Penalty Details Middle stories that about 150 such inmates have been set to death considering that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom reaffirmed the death penalty as constitutional in 1976.
The Florida Supreme Courtroom recognized the Brevard County ruling, noting last week that no other motion trying to find a continue to be of execution for Barnes experienced been submitted in condition or federal court docket.
In the Herzog interview, Barnes stated he converted to Islam in prison and required to obvious his conscience about the Miller case all through the holy month of Ramadan.
“They say I’m remorseless. I’m not. There are no more issues on this circumstance. And I am heading to be executed,” Barnes reported.
In a the latest letter, the Florida Meeting of Catholic Bishops requested DeSantis to grant a remain of execution and commute Barnes’ sentence to life in jail even however Barnes is just not trying to find these aid. The Catholic church opposes the loss of life penalty.
“Mr. Barnes’ ready acceptance of demise, the punishment place in put by the justice program, does not absolve the state from bringing it about. Simply place, no one particular need to be executed in our contemporary penal system, even if they willingly take it,” the letter reported.
