Samuel Smithers, 72, was executed Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison in Raiford. File Photo by Paul Buck\/EPA<\/p>\n
Oct. 15 (UPI) — Florida on Tuesday executed a 72-year-old death row inmate for the 1996 murders of two women, as the state continues its record pace of executions.<\/p>\n
Samuel Smithers was put to death by lethal injection, and pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. EDT Tuesday at Florida State Prison in Raiford, according to a statement<\/a> from the Florida Department of Corrections.\n<\/p>\n Smithers is the 14th death-row inmate executed in Florida this year, a new record. The Sunshine State broke its previous high of eight, set in 2014, in August and has two more executions scheduled for the year.<\/p>\n He is also the oldest person to be executed by Florida in the modern era, which began with the resumption of executions in 1976.\n<\/p>\n Smithers’ defense lawyers argued that executing their client would constitute “cruel and unusual punishment because of his advanced age” — an argument the Supreme Court<\/a> of Florida rejected<\/a> last week, finding “no opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court or this Court has held that the elderly are categorically exempt from execution.”\n<\/p>\n The U.S. Supreme Court also denied<\/a> Smithers’ final appeal hours before his 6 p.m.-scheduled execution.<\/p>\n Amnesty International<\/a> USA and Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty were among anti-capital-punishment advocates who opposed Smithers’ execution.<\/p>\n “We killed an elderly man whose continued cognitive decline over his 30 years on death row was medically documented. We killed a man who posed absolutely no threat to anyone,” FADP said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Florida’s leaders insist that killing people and calling it justice somehow brings peace — that this relentless killing spree honors victims and families. It does not. It never has. It was a lie when it was told 30 years ago in this case and it remains a lie tonight.”<\/p>\n Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, took to X<\/a> to defend the execution, stating “Smithers was literally an axe murderer — he was convicted and sentenced to death for killing two women.”<\/p>\n Smithers was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999 for the murders of Christie Cowan and Denis Roach three years earlier.<\/p>\n