US Supreme Court denies stay in Florida execution set for this week
The Supreme Court, as is common, did not explain the reasons for turning down a last-ditch petition and a motion for stay of execution filed Friday by Rogers' attorneys. The Florida Supreme Court also refused to halt the execution last week.
Rogers, 62, is scheduled to be the fifth inmate executed this year in Florida. He was sent to Death Row for the November 1995 stabbing death of Tina Marie Cribbs in a Tampa motel room after they met at a bar.
Rogers stole Cribbs' car and was later arrested in Kentucky after leading police on a high-speed chase, according to a court document. He also was convicted of murdering a woman in California and was a suspect in murders in Louisiana and Mississippi.
In asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution, Rogers' attorneys focused on him having a medical condition known as porphyria and the potential interaction with etomidate, the first drug administered in the three-drug execution process. Rogers' attorneys contended that he should receive an evidentiary hearing about whether using the drug would lead to pain in violation of the U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Information on the Mayo Clinic website described porphyria as a 'group of rare disorders that result from a buildup of natural chemicals called porphyrins in the body.' It said high levels of porphyrins can cause problems in the nervous system and skin. Rogers' attorneys said it has affected his liver.
But in a response filed Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier's office said Rogers has long been aware of his porphyria diagnosis and that, under state law, courts can't consider an 'untimely' request for an evidentiary hearing.
'Rogers admitted that he has been aware of his porphyria diagnosis since at least 1997 and yet, he failed to raise the claim until after his death warrant was issued,' the response said. 'Rogers' lethal injection challenge is little more than an attack on settled (legal) precedent and does not warrant … review, particularly when he was dilatory in bringing this claim.'
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant for Rogers on April 15.
DeSantis last week also signed a death warrant for Anthony Wainwright, who was convicted of kidnapping a woman in 1994 from a Winn-Dixie supermarket parking lot in Lake City and raping and murdering her in rural Hamilton County. Wainwright is scheduled to be executed June 10.
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