More than 31 years after the brutal murders of a Seminole County woman and her 8-year-old granddaughter, Edward James, 63, was executed by lethal injection Thursday evening at Florida State Prison, becoming the second person executed in the state this year.
James, who was convicted in the 1993 killings of Betty Dick and her granddaughter Toni Neuner, was pronounced dead at 8:15 p.m. The execution followed a last-minute legal effort by his defense attorney to delay the sentence, which was rejected earlier Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The victims’ family members, who witnessed the execution from a viewing room, described the pain of a decades-long wait for justice.
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Court records show that James had been renting a room in Dick’s home when, after a night of drinking and drug use, he sexually assaulted and strangled the child before stabbing Dick to death. He was convicted in 1994, and an 11-1 jury recommended the death penalty — a detail his attorney later cited in appeals as unconstitutional under evolving legal standards.
On February 18, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed James’ death warrant, initiating the final stage of legal proceedings. James’ execution comes a little over a month after James Ford was executed on February 13 for the 1997 murders of a Charlotte County couple.
In recent appeals, defense attorney Dawn Macready argued that James suffered from cognitive decline due to childhood trauma, substance abuse, multiple head injuries, and a 2023 heart attack that deprived his brain of oxygen. She also challenged the non-unanimous jury recommendation, citing it as a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
“The state of Florida continues to be an extreme outlier when it comes to nonunanimous jury recommendations,” Macready wrote in her motion to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week.
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The court declined to intervene, and James declined to make a final statement Thursday night. His final meal included fried catfish, hush puppies, potato salad, cookies, soda, and coffee. He did not receive any visitors on the day of his execution.
James’ execution adds to Florida’s long and controversial history with the death penalty. Florida reinstated capital punishment in 1976, and since then, James becomes the 107th person executed by the state.
Historically, Florida has drawn national scrutiny for its use of non-unanimous jury recommendations in death penalty cases — a practice the U.S. Supreme Court has increasingly questioned. The state previously paused executions from 2019 to 2023, but Gov. DeSantis reignited capital punishment during his administration, signing multiple death warrants over the last two years.
The next execution is scheduled for April 8, when Michael Tanzi is set to be executed for the 2000 murder of a woman in Monroe County.
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