The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday paused next week’s scheduled execution of James Duckett — a former Lake County police officer, who was convicted in 1988 of raping, choking and drowning an 11-year-old girl — as his lawyers await the results of DNA testing that could prove his innocence.
Duckett’s execution, scheduled for 6 p.m., Tuesday, “is hereby stayed pending further order of this Court,” according to the order approved by six of the seven Supreme Court justices. Justice Adam Tanenbaum dissented.
The justices also ordered the state to provide them with a report on the status of the DNA testing by 5 p.m. Friday.
The justices did not issue an opinion explaining their decision to stay Duckett’s execution. The stay is temporary and Duckett’s execution could be reinstated by the court after the DNA results are completed.
In his dissent, Tanenbaum said the Florida Supreme Court does not “have the statutory authority” to stay the execution in this particular case.
If the results of the DNA testing “cannot be obtained in time, we should trust the Governor to stay the execution on his own,” Tanenbaum wrote in his dissent.
Tanenbaum also stated that Duckett — who has long proclaimed his innocence — only sought extensive DNA testing of pubic hair and semen after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant this month.
“He failed to explain why he waited until the Governor signed the warrant to pursue all of this, which he clearly could have done sooner with the exercise of some diligence,” Tanenbaum wrote. He added that Duckett was given the opportunity to have the DNA tested in 2005, but he refused.
In May 1987, 11-year-old Teresa McAbee walked alone at night to a nearby convenience store with her mother’s permission to buy pencils to complete her math homework.
As she walked out of the store, she started talking to a group of teenage boys in the parking lot while Duckett — who as a Mascotte police officer was running radar across State Road 50 — watched. Duckett then pulled into the store’s parking lot and told Teresa and the boys to go home because of a curfew.
Witnesses offered conflicting statements about what happened next, with some saying the girl walked around the store to head back home and others saying that she got in Duckett’s patrol car, and he drove away.
Her body was found early the next morning by a fisherman along the shore of a lake less than a mile south of the store. The horrified fisherman ran out to the street to hail the Mascotte police chief, who was directing traffic in front of a nearby elementary school.
Investigators found tire tracks that matched Duckett’s patrol car along a dirt road leading to the lake. They also found palm prints on the hood of Duckett’s patrol car that matched Teresa’s. Prosecutors said the prints suggested she was trying to push away while being raped.
But his attorneys have long argued Duckett was convicted and sent to Florida’s Death Row in June 1988 based on circumstantial evidence. No other suspects were considered.
The DNA testing is being conducted on pubic hair found in Teresa’s panties and a now-dried vaginal swab with semen. Those samples have never been tested for DNA and have been stored at the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. This month a circuit court judge, at the request of Duckett’s attorneys, ordered them delivered to a private laboratory in Deerfield Beach for testing.
The extensive testing, which is being paid for by Duckett’s attorneys, is scheduled to be completed by Friday, according to court records.
On Thursday, Duckett’s attorneys filed a motion in Lake County requesting the Florida Department of Law Enforcement immediately provide them with the results of the DNA testing as soon as it is completed. They also request that representatives of the lab be available — even during the weekend — to answer questions regarding the testing protocol used.
In response, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said that the DNA results should be provided to the court and not Duckett’s attorneys.
Uthmeier called the motion by Duckett’s attorneys an “obvious attempt to manipulate the judicial system to obtain an unwarranted delay in carrying out the execution” in their efforts to challenge every aspect of the DNA testing.
“A truly innocent man would have sought SNP DNA testing as soon as it was available rather than waiting over four years and until a warrant for his execution was signed,” Uthmeier’s motion said. “Indeed, his delay in seeking DNA testing is more evidence of his guilt.”
Duckett is an inmate on Death Row at the state prison in Raiford.