Attorneys for Florida death row inmate James Aren Duckett filed an emergency motion with the Florida Supreme Court late Wednesday, seeking to halt his execution scheduled for March 31. The 11th-hour legal maneuver argues that the State is moving toward a lethal injection while critical DNA evidence—which a judge previously admitted could prove Duckett’s innocence—sits inside a laboratory.
Duckett, who has maintained his innocence for 38 years, is currently facing a death warrant signed by the Governor in late February. The crux of the appeal rests on a “Q slide” containing biological material found on a victim’s clothing from the 1987 case.
The Fight for the “Q Slide”
While a lower court recently granted Duckett’s request for advanced DNA testing, his legal team claims the current schedule makes a fair outcome impossible. According to the motion, the private lab handling the evidence, DNA Labs International (DLI), is not expected to produce results until March 27—just four days before Duckett is set to die at 6:00 p.m.
“The results are expected just four days before Mr. Duckett’s scheduled execution, which does not leave adequate time to meaningfully litigate Mr. Duckett’s claims,” the motion states.
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The defense initially requested Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) testing using Massively Parallel Sequencing, a highly sensitive method they argue is necessary for degraded samples. While the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) agreed that testing was warranted, it admitted it lacked the internal capability to perform the specific SNP analysis required.
A “Probability of Acquittal”
The legal battle intensified after a March 10 ruling in which the circuit court acknowledged the high stakes of the forensic findings. The court noted that the identified genetic material “would have a reasonable probability of producing an acquittal at trial if favorable to Defendant.”
Despite this acknowledgement, the lower court denied Duckett’s motion for postconviction relief on March 18, even though the DNA results were still pending. Duckett’s attorneys characterized this as a “quintessential example of denial of due process,” arguing that the court shouldn’t rule on the merits of a case while the most vital evidence is still being processed.
Procedural Hurdles and Precedent
The defense is urging the Supreme Court to avoid “piecemeal litigation,” where legal claims are decided bit by bit rather than as a whole. They cited the 2009 case of David Eugene Johnston, where the court stayed an execution for 90 days to allow for DNA testing.
Duckett’s counsel, led by Mary Elizabeth Wells, argued that rushing the process risks an irreversible mistake.
“Rushing the DNA testing process… creates a significant risk that the State of Florida will execute an innocent person,” the motion reads, noting that Florida currently leads the United States in death row exonerations.
The State has not yet filed its formal response to the stay request. If the Florida Supreme Court denies the motion, Duckett’s team is expected to escalate the appeal to federal courts.
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