The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected last-ditch appeals aimed at preventing the scheduled execution of Frank Walls, clearing the final legal hurdle for the state of Florida to put the condemned killer to death on Thursday evening.
Unless the governor intervenes, Walls, 58, will be executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison. His death will mark a modern record for the state: the 19th execution carried out in a single year.
The nation’s highest court turned away arguments late Thursday that Walls should be spared, finalizing a day of rapid legal defeats for the inmate. Earlier in the day, the Florida Supreme Court also refused to halt the proceedings, rejecting claims related to Walls’ intellectual capacity and his age at the time of the 1987 murders.
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Walls was convicted of the brutal killings of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson in Okaloosa County. He broke into the couple’s home on July 22, 1987, shooting both victims.
Defense attorneys had fought to stay the execution on multiple fronts. In filings before state and federal courts, they argued that executing Walls would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. They cited IQ scores of 72 and 74 obtained during Walls’ adulthood as evidence of intellectual disability.
“The record is rich with evidence of Mr. Walls’ intellectual disability,” his attorneys wrote in a brief to the Florida Supreme Court. “Not only does Mr. Walls have qualifying IQ scores, but there is also evidence of his subaverage functioning and issues with adaptive functioning.”
The state Attorney General’s office, however, successfully countered these claims. State lawyers pointed to three IQ tests taken when Walls was a minor that showed an average score of 97, arguing his adult scores did not prove he was “significantly subaverage.”
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“Walls is not now intellectually disabled and never was,” the state wrote in its response.
The defense also asked the courts to extend the federal ban on executing minors to include “young adults,” noting Walls was 19 at the time of the crime. The Florida Supreme Court dismissed this argument Thursday, stating it lacked the authority to expand federal precedent beyond those under 18.
The state court’s 24-page majority opinion largely rejected the defense’s final pleas on procedural grounds, noting the arguments had either been raised previously or were filed too late.
The earlier state ruling was backed by Chief Justice Carlos Muniz and Justices John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis, and Meredith Sasso. Justice Jorge Labarga dissented, and Justice Charles Canady was recused.
With the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial, the legal path is now clear for the execution warrant signed by the governor to be carried out.
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