The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday refused to halt next week's scheduled execution of Frank Walls, turning down arguments that he should be spared because he is intellectually disabled and was 19 years old at the time he murdered two people in Okaloosa County.
Meanwhile Thursday, a separate case filed by Walls' attorneys remained pending at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That federal-court case raises different arguments to try to prevent the execution.
Walls, 58, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 18 and would become a record 19th Florida inmate put to death this year. He was convicted in the July 22, 1987, murders of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson, who died of gunshot wounds after Walls broke into their home, according to court documents.
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Thursday's Supreme Court opinion upheld a decision by Okaloosa County Circuit Judge William Stone, who declined last week to block the execution.
Walls' attorneys argued, in part, that executing Walls would violate the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment because he is intellectually disabled. As an example, the attorneys pointed to Walls having IQ scores of 72 and 74 as an adult.
"The record is rich with evidence of Mr. Walls' intellectual disability," the attorneys wrote in a Supreme Court brief. "Not only does Mr. Walls have qualifying IQ scores, but there is also evidence of his subaverage functioning and issues with adaptive functioning. This (Supreme) Court should not ignore this evidence "
Attorney General James Uthmeier's office, in a response filed at the Supreme Court, disputed that Walls is intellectually disabled. It said Walls had an average IQ of 97 on three tests when he was a minor and his average score of 73 as an adult is "not significantly subaverage intellectual functioning."
"Walls is not now intellectually disabled and never was," the state's lawyers wrote.
Thursday's 24-page majority opinion largely rejected Walls' argument on procedural grounds, saying that he had raised intellectual-disabilities arguments in earlier appeals and been denied.
Walls' attorneys also argued that he should be shielded from execution because he was 19 at the time of the killings. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 2005 decision known as Roper v. Simmons, said it would violate the Eighth Amendment to execute people who committed crimes when they were under age 18.
Walls' attorneys contend the prohibition also should apply to people such as Walls who committed crimes as young adults. But Uthmeier's office responded that the Florida Supreme Court has "repeatedly held that it lacks the authority to expand Roper beyond minors to include adults."
The Supreme Court said Thursday that Walls' argument was raised outside of a procedural time limit. It said "Walls marshals what he classified as new scientific evidence to support his claim, but we have previously rejected arguments that similar evidence constitutes newly discovered evidence sufficient to overcome procedural bars."
The majority opinion was shared by Chief Justice Carlos Muniz and Justices John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso. Justice Jorge Labarga dissented, while Justice Charles Canady was recused.
Walls' attorneys on Wednesday also filed an emergency motion for a stay of execution at the federal appeals court after U.S. District Judge Mark Walker refused to halt the execution.
The federal-court case raises issues about Walls' chronic health problems and Florida's lethal injection process and contends that putting him to death would violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
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