With less than three weeks remaining before his scheduled execution, attorneys for James E. Hitchcock have filed an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court. The notice, submitted Monday afternoon, April 13, 2026, seeks to halt the execution set for April 30 at 6:00 P.M.
The filing by the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel comes after a series of rulings by the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in Orange County.
Judges recently denied Hitchcock’s requests for additional public records from the Department of Corrections and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, while also rejecting a motion to vacate his death sentence and stay the execution.
The legal battle stems from a 1976 case involving the death of Hitchcock’s 13-year-old step-niece. Court records show that Hitchcock, who was unemployed and ill at the time, had been living with his brother Richard’s family for a few weeks prior to the crime.
On the night of the murder, Hitchcock spent several hours in Winter Garden drinking and smoking marijuana before returning to the home around 2:30 a.m. According to initial statements provided to police after his arrest, Hitchcock entered the house through a window and had sexual intercourse with the victim.
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When the girl threatened to tell her mother, Hitchcock admitted to choking and beating her before hiding her body in nearby bushes and returning to the house to shower.
Hitchcock later changed his account during his trial, claiming the victim had consented to the encounter and that it was actually his brother, Richard, who discovered them and killed the girl in a rage. Hitchcock testified he only confessed to protect his brother.
However, a jury convicted him of first-degree premeditated murder and recommended the death penalty, which the trial court upheld after weighing aggravating and mitigating factors.
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence in 1982.
Now, fifty years after the indictment, Hitchcock’s defense team is making a final push for judicial review. The new appeal argues that the recent denials of record requests and the refusal to stay the execution are “interrelated and intertwined,” and should be reconsidered in the “spirit of judicial economy.”
State officials and the Florida Supreme Court were formally notified of the appeal on Monday. Unless the court intervenes, Hitchcock will be executed at the end of the month.
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