This undated photo provided by the Florida Department of Corrections on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, shows Norman Grim. [AP Photo\/Florida Department of Corrections]<\/p>\n
Norman Mearle Grim Jr.\u00a0died by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on Tuesday evening, October 28, 2025, at 6:14 p.m., marking\u00a0Florida\u2019s 15th execution this year. The condemned inmate did not meet with any visitors before his scheduled execution and made no final statement.<\/p>\n
Under Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida has put to death more people than any other state in 2025, also setting a new record for the state for executions in a single year. The previous highest tally in Florida since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 was eight. If the remaining scheduled executions are carried out, the state is projected to reach\u00a017 executions this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gestures as he answers questions along with Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nu\u00f1ez, after a roundtable discussion at the Roberto Alonso Community Center, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, in Miami Lakes, Florida. [AP Photo\/Wilfredo Lee]<\/p>\n
Grim was convicted in December 2000 of\u00a0sexual battery and first-degree murder\u00a0for the 1998 killing of his next-door neighbor, Cynthia Campbell. Campbell, a 41-year-old lawyer, was brutally attacked by Grim shortly after he invited her over for coffee. Campbell\u2019s battered body was later found by a fisherman off the Pensacola Bay Bridge, having suffered multiple blunt-force injuries and stab wounds.<\/p>\n
Grim\u2019s background leading up to this brutal killing was traumatic. He was raised in a\u00a0multigenerational cycle of violence and alcoholism. Before the crime, he had sought counseling and medication for his\u00a0mental illness and early-life trauma. However, at his trial in 2000 he refused to allow his lawyers to present these mitigating factors, leading to a jury recommendation of death by a\u00a0unanimous 12-0 vote.<\/p>\n
During his sentencing phase, the trial court recognized his\u00a0disruptive home life, abuse as a child and his\u00a0mental health problems as mitigating factors but assigned\u00a0no weight\u00a0to his\u00a0lack of long-term psychiatric care.<\/p>\n
More recently, in a hearing earlier this month, Grim waived his final appeals. Opponents of the death penalty argue these decisions were\u00a0rooted in the same trauma that taught him his life did not matter, effectively turning his execution into a state-assisted suicide.<\/p>\n
Grim faced execution without the protections every defendant is owed under the law. His previous defense attorney had retired years ago and never officially withdrew. It was only after DeSantis signed Grim\u2019s death warrant that the state filed an Emergency Motion to Appoint Counsel on the grounds that Grim was technically without representation. This resulted in newly appointed counsel having only a few days to review decades of court records and submit an initial filing, which\u00a0counsel called an\u00a0\u201cunreasonable ask\u201d\u00a0that posed a \u201cconstitutional crisis\u201d in the state.<\/p>\n
Exceptional procedural death penalty rules<\/p>\n
Though Grim\u2019s jury was unanimous, his case sheds light on Florida\u2019s exceptional procedural rules. Florida is one of only\u00a0two states, the other being Alabama, that authorizes juries to recommend death sentences with a non-unanimous vote. Currently, Florida law only requires eight of 12 jurors to recommend a death sentence.<\/p>\n
Grim\u2019s earlier appeals were repeatedly denied by the courts. Only after the US Supreme Court\u2019s 2016 decision in\u00a0Hurst v. Florida\u00a0ruled Florida\u2019s death sentencing process unconstitutional under the Sixth Amendment\u2014which guarantees the right to a speedy and public trial, the right to an impartial jury and the right to legal counsel, among other protections\u2014did Grim file a motion for postconviction relief. However, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of that claim in 2018 because his original jury recommendation was unanimous.<\/p>\n
The legal representation crisis seen in Grim\u2019s final days is echoed in other Florida cases due to Governor DeSantis\u2019 rapid pace of issuing death warrants.<\/p>\n
Bryan Jennings, a 66-year-old US Marine Corps veteran scheduled for execution on November 13, 2025, has been housed on death row for nearly 45 years. Jennings was left\u00a0without any state-appointed attorney for over three years, despite Florida law guaranteeing continuous state postconviction counsel for death-sentenced individuals.The execution of\u00a0Curtis Windom on August 28, 2025 focused attention on the accelerating pace of executions in Florida. His attorneys argued that the postconviction defense bar was \u201coverwhelmed by an unprecedented number of death warrants\u201d being signed \u201cevery two weeks.\u201d Due to the tight schedule imposed by Windom\u2019s death warrant, his attorneys reported they had\u00a0only one day\u00a0to consult with him in a meaningful manner before the court-imposed deadline for filing motions. Florida stands out nationwide for its execution process, largely due to the extraordinary power vested in the executive branch. The governor of Florida holds the\u00a0sole authority\u00a0to select and set the execution dates for inmates on death row. He can also grant a stay for any reason at any time, a power he has yet to exercise.<\/p>\n This process is criticized for being\u00a0opaque and shrouded in secrecy. Governor DeSantis alone decides who among those sentenced to death will be executed and when, and he\u00a0has refused to provide the public with any explanation\u00a0for his decisions. This contrasts with most other states where the courts are heavily involved in the issuing of death warrants.<\/p>\n This\u00a0arbitrariness\u00a0is compounded by serious allegations of\u00a0racial bias\u00a0in DeSantis\u2019 warrant signing. A civil suit filed on behalf of\u00a0Kayle Barrington Bates, executed August 19, 2025, alleged that Florida\u2019s execution warrant process \u201cis infected with racial discrimination and unconstitutional arbitrariness.\u201d Statistical analysis presented in the suit noted that\u00a095 percent of the executions authorized by DeSantis involved white victims. The complaint argued that a defendant convicted of killing a white victim is\u00a0over 15 times more likely to be executed\u00a0under DeSantis\u2019 administration than a defendant whose victims are not white. Bates\u2019 lawsuit also pointed out that\u00a0DeSantis has not executed a single white defendant for killing a non-white defendant. The governor\u2019s motion to dismiss the lawsuit denied any discriminatory effect or purpose.<\/p>\n The systemic flaws in Florida\u2019s death penalty system carry the catastrophic risk of executing the innocent. Florida has already dropped charges against\u00a0a staggering 30 death row prisoners since 1973, more than any other state. Opponents argue that this frequent rate of exonerations adds to the moral argument against the practice and highlights the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people\u2014as well as the near certainty that this has already happened.<\/p>\n With Grim\u2019s execution, 41 people have been put to death in state execution chambers across the US, the most since 2012. This pace has been driven by four states, Florida, Texas, Alabama and South Carolina, which have carried out three-quarters of these state killings. The US is on track to carry out 46 executions in 2025, a number not seen since 2012.<\/p>\n Sign up for the WSWS email newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This undated photo provided by the Florida Department of Corrections on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, shows Norman Grim.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2683,2195,28,30,29,18503],"class_list":["post-26059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-desantis","tag-execution","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-norman-grim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Arbitrary power of the Florida governor<\/p>\n