Speaker 1: Hey, folks, it is Tuesday, March thirty first, the day
Speaker 1: James Duckett was supposed to be executed in Florida. It
Speaker 1: will not happen, not today at least thing with that.
Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Roll. This
Speaker 1: is a surprising case because of where it is, who
Speaker 1: it is, and that there was a stay of execution.
Speaker 2: So let's go ahead.
Speaker 1: And I hate to say the word unpack all this,
Speaker 1: but a scheduled execution tonight in Florida is not happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was surprising to have the Florida Supreme
Speaker 3: Court step in and place his stay of execution for
Speaker 3: James Aaron Duckett's defense team to have DNA that's been
Speaker 3: stored for nearly forty years now to be tested. His
Speaker 3: attorneys saying this could exonerate him. He has maintained his
Speaker 3: innocence from the beginning. And so the Supreme Court, the
Speaker 3: state Supreme Court Court stepped in and said, let's get
Speaker 3: that tested.
Speaker 1: Okay, we were on the edge of our seats last
Speaker 1: week the state. This rarely happened. It certainly doesn't happen
Speaker 1: in Florida. But a court stepped in and said, hey,
Speaker 1: there's something relevant enough that we think we shouldn't go
Speaker 1: through the execution. So Roland, we were waiting standing by
Speaker 1: last Friday, they said we want to status update by
Speaker 1: five o'clock. Sure enough, they got one by five o'clock
Speaker 1: on Friday, and it didn't really help. It didn't move
Speaker 1: the needle one way or another day.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was inconclusive, and so immediately the state then
Speaker 3: files a petition to the State Supreme Court saying, okay,
Speaker 3: we did what you said, we put everything on pause.
Speaker 3: We got the results, and they do not exonerate James Duckett.
Speaker 3: He has not been proven to be innocent. There is
Speaker 3: no other suspect, there's no other DNA, and yes it's inconclusive,
Speaker 3: but it also doesn't exonerate. So we would like to
Speaker 3: go forward with the planned execution for today, March thirty first,
Speaker 3: at six pm. We would like James Aaron Duckett to
Speaker 3: die by lethal injection as scheduled. And honestly, yes, his
Speaker 3: defense team filed the motion saying wait, wait, wait, wait wait,
Speaker 3: can we have another lab look at it. I have
Speaker 3: to say I didn't think they were going to side
Speaker 3: with the defense.
Speaker 1: And I am not exactly sure why. They didn't explain
Speaker 1: a lot in their ruling. But the Supreme Court State
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, when asked by the prosecutor to now lift
Speaker 1: the stay and let the execution go through at six
Speaker 1: o'clock to night, the State Supreme Court said, no, our
Speaker 1: stay is going to stay in place. But rose they
Speaker 1: put another date on it that I don't necessarily understand
Speaker 1: what they're waiting for, but in a couple of days
Speaker 1: they're expecting to hear back from all parties.
Speaker 3: That is correct, on April second, that is this Thursday.
Speaker 3: So in just in two days, the Circuit Court is
Speaker 3: required to now give an update by five pm or
Speaker 3: at five pm is the way I believe it was worded.
Speaker 3: And the only way I can can imagine they could
Speaker 3: give an update is if another lab is taking a
Speaker 3: look at the results. The defense actually had a specific
Speaker 3: lab that they had fought for initially to actually do
Speaker 3: the testing and take a look at the DNA and
Speaker 3: we'll describe where this DNA came from and all of
Speaker 3: that for those of you who need to be caught up.
Speaker 3: But the State said no, we wanted at our lab,
Speaker 3: So the State's lab did it. It's inconclusive and Now
Speaker 3: the defense says, now, can our lab take a stab
Speaker 3: at it? So my understanding would be that yes, another
Speaker 3: lab is either retesting it or reviewing it, or somehow
Speaker 3: just another set of scientific guys are on these results
Speaker 3: to see if it can in fact exonerate duck it.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's bottom line, this thing is that a
Speaker 1: man has been on death row for forty years, literally
Speaker 1: have his has his life in the balance based on
Speaker 1: some DNA testing now ropes, that is a big deal
Speaker 1: and a big headline. The possibility that a death row
Speaker 1: inmate could be exonerated, however, robes as big of a
Speaker 1: headline as that seems to be. There are plenty of
Speaker 1: others who just look at a guy who was desperate
Speaker 1: to stay alive, and now he's throwing anything he can
Speaker 1: up against the wall and to see if it might
Speaker 1: legally stick.
Speaker 3: And look, the cynic in me says that exact same thing.
Speaker 3: We see this all the time. There's no guilty prisoners
Speaker 3: on death row. Everyone's innocent, right. Most people say, I
Speaker 3: didn't do it wasn't me. It was this guy, It
Speaker 3: was him, It wasn't me. Look, I have to at
Speaker 3: least consider the fact that six out of the seven
Speaker 3: Florida State Supreme Court justices opposed the state's request to
Speaker 3: go forward with the execution. That is significant in a
Speaker 3: state like Florida, and six out of seven that to
Speaker 3: me speaks volumes. This wasn't a split decision.
Speaker 2: Oh this does this not speak to.
Speaker 1: It does not. There is nothing they suggested. There's nothing.
Speaker 1: You please tell We've been researching this case for a while.
Speaker 1: I don't see anything other than his own camp that
Speaker 1: is hootin and hollering about an innocent man is about
Speaker 1: to be put to death.
Speaker 3: No, and look everyone, and we have gone over the
Speaker 3: evidence that was presented in court. They claim it was
Speaker 3: all circumstantial. It was the fact that he was last
Speaker 3: seen with this eleven year old girl. And by the way,
Speaker 3: we are talking about we're talking about an eleven year
Speaker 3: old girl who was strangled, drowned, and raped in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty seven. And this officer, he was a police officer.
Speaker 3: He was a rookie officer, correct James Aaron Jumper. He
Speaker 3: was a young guy, a new officer. And he even
Speaker 3: admits to having seen this eleven year old girl the
Speaker 3: night she went missing. She apparently left her home to
Speaker 3: go she told her mom she needed to get some pencils.
Speaker 3: Ten thirty at night, She's seen with a sixteen year
Speaker 3: old boy near this convene in store. According to James
Speaker 3: Duckett and to eyewitnesses, he tells a little girl and
Speaker 3: the sixteen year old, you guys are out past curfew,
Speaker 3: tells the sixteen year old to skidaddle, gets her in
Speaker 3: the back of his car. She's never seen again. That's
Speaker 3: damning right then, and there the fact that he is
Speaker 3: the last known person to have seen her alive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, throwing the other stuff.
Speaker 3: The other stuff is that her handprints are on the
Speaker 3: hood of his car.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: The other evidence is that that there are tire tracks
Speaker 3: that are leading to the lake where her body was
Speaker 3: found the following day by a fisherman. And the fact
Speaker 3: that there was a pubic hair that they said matched
Speaker 3: his pubic hair. They didn't have the DNA testing abilities
Speaker 3: that they do now. And this is where we are.
Speaker 3: There was some seamen found on the eleven year old's genes,
Speaker 3: and that semen has now been able to undergo a
Speaker 3: type of testing that wasn't available up until recently.
Speaker 2: Okay, please put in context which you mean by recently.
Speaker 3: Here's the twenty twenty four and this is significant. According
Speaker 3: to police and prosecutors, James Aaron Duckett was given the
Speaker 3: opportunity to have that DNA tested with this new way
Speaker 3: of testing it, and he declined, why the opportunity to
Speaker 3: have that seaman tested? And it wasn't until Governor DeSantis
Speaker 3: signed his death warrant and his clock started ticking. You
Speaker 3: got thirty days. All of a sudden, his defense team
Speaker 3: in the last hour and a few days leading up
Speaker 3: to the execution said wait a minute, we want that
Speaker 3: DNA tested.
Speaker 1: Well, I skip it in the first place. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that sarcastically. I'm saying, what was their legal reasoning
Speaker 1: for why they did not want that DNA tested? What
Speaker 1: was their logic.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen a direct response to that. I've only
Speaker 3: seen the prosecutor raise the exact question that you did
Speaker 3: to the court saying I'm sorry, but an innocent man
Speaker 3: would have asked for this to be tested immediately as
Speaker 3: soon as proper testing was available, and that in and
Speaker 3: of itself speaks for itself.
Speaker 1: S has this been a case? We've seen some cases.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the folks who get people off who take.
Speaker 3: It Connison's project, the innocent project.
Speaker 2: This is not one of their cases.
Speaker 1: No, nobody else is out there hooting and holland that
Speaker 1: innocent man is about to be killed. Now, is it possible?
Speaker 1: I guess robes, But we are now being inundated at
Speaker 1: this point. If you were, sweetheart, Look, there's a way
Speaker 1: that innocent people act, and they're not quiet.
Speaker 2: For forty years, they are not.
Speaker 3: It's interesting that you say that, because I actually did
Speaker 3: a deeper dive and was reading what the sheriff said
Speaker 3: about his deputy, and look, police aren't one. Aren't a
Speaker 3: group of folks who look to their own to look
Speaker 3: for suspects or to be suspicious of. But he said
Speaker 3: it was his rookie deputy who he was on the
Speaker 3: scene with him the next day. He said the way
Speaker 3: Officer Duckett was acting was so strange that he started
Speaker 3: to investigate. He said he was uncomfortable, He wasn't curious
Speaker 3: about how she died. He was shifty in a way
Speaker 3: that he felt like made him suddenly suspicious. I thought
Speaker 3: that was interesting that his own sheriff, on the day
Speaker 3: her body was found, started getting He said, the way
Speaker 3: he was talking about how he was the last person
Speaker 3: to see him. Sounded like a rehearsed, nervous story, and
Speaker 3: it raised a red flag for him to dig deeper.
Speaker 3: And that is how the investigation into Duckett began was
Speaker 3: because of his sheriff's suspicions. It took five months for
Speaker 3: them to actually bring charges and arrest him. But he
Speaker 3: said that very day that that little girl's body was found,
Speaker 3: he thought, hmm, I thought that was of note as well.
Speaker 1: That does not guilt to make just because somebody had
Speaker 1: a gut feeling. Sure, but it is relevant.
Speaker 3: And I do think I hadn't looked to see. But
Speaker 3: when Duckett was sentenced to death, Before he was sentenced
Speaker 3: to death, I should mention James Duckett actually in court records,
Speaker 3: said this to the judge. He has always maintained his innocence.
Speaker 3: He said, I did not do this. When the person
Speaker 3: who did this repeats it, I want to see the
Speaker 3: face of the person telling the victim's mother, father, sister, brother,
Speaker 3: I am sorry. We thought we had the right one before.
Speaker 3: That's interesting, that's what he said right before sentencing. He
Speaker 3: was defiant.
Speaker 1: Every prosecutor and judge in the country said, yeap that
Speaker 1: sounds familiar. I heard that before, right before I sent
Speaker 1: a guy off to a life sentence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds about right.
Speaker 1: Everybody on cell Block D is innocent. Everybody so fine.
Speaker 1: There are exceptions they should be listened to. But at
Speaker 1: some point, Robes, when do you stop all the back
Speaker 1: and forth and the madness we don't have We have
Speaker 1: our issues with the death penalty, yes, but we also
Speaker 1: have penalties or problems with it being delayed justice that
Speaker 1: this is justice. Why are we waiting forty years? Why
Speaker 1: are we waiting forty two forty five so we can
Speaker 1: get every lab in the country to test this DNA
Speaker 1: that he had forty years to test?
Speaker 3: And yet you made the point, Look, if it's just
Speaker 3: a matter of a day or two more for another
Speaker 3: lab to take a look at it, why not do that?
Speaker 3: And it seems like that is where the Florida State
Speaker 3: Supreme Court fell on this. It's better to be safe
Speaker 3: than sorry. There's no undoing an execution, and so why
Speaker 3: not push it a little forward? So we're hopefully going
Speaker 3: to get some more answers about what will happen to
Speaker 3: Ducket given where we are, we're literally in limbo right now,
Speaker 3: in just a matter of days on Thursday. But when
Speaker 3: we come back, we're going to talk about what Duckett
Speaker 3: has been doing for these past thirty days since DeSantis
Speaker 3: signed his death warrant. He's been writing all about it
Speaker 3: on a website. And welcome back everyone to this episode
Speaker 3: of Amy and TJ. The execution is off for now
Speaker 3: of James Aaron Duckett. He was scheduled to die tonight
Speaker 3: by lethal injection for the rape and murder of an
Speaker 3: eleven year old girl nearly forty years ago. The Florida
Speaker 3: State Supreme Ford said let's give it a few more
Speaker 3: days after the first DNA tests from the case came
Speaker 3: back inconclusive, and the defense asked for another lab to
Speaker 3: take a look at the results before making the decision
Speaker 3: about when or if to actually follow through with the
Speaker 3: execution of James Aaron Duckett. And so a whole host
Speaker 3: of events take place once a governor signs a death
Speaker 3: warrant that I really didn't know. Obviously, this is all
Speaker 3: very rehearsed and scheduled, but I didn't realize the day
Speaker 3: the death warrant is signed, action is taken.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're isolated this and they keep an eye on you.
Speaker 1: This is a totally different It shifts and right, what
Speaker 1: is it? They their own death were over thirty forty years,
Speaker 1: but they end up not necessarily an isolation that long,
Speaker 1: certainly in Florida.
Speaker 3: In Florida's Oh yes, so he actually duck it. Actually,
Speaker 3: there's a website out there called Prison Writers, and I look,
Speaker 3: they do vet this writing so as to not upset
Speaker 3: or harm any victims' families out there. But they have
Speaker 3: some editors who have journalism backgrounds, and they make sure
Speaker 3: that the writing is non offensive. But he was allowed
Speaker 3: to post through this website what it's been like for
Speaker 3: him these past thirty days. And so he said. On
Speaker 3: February twenty seventh, that is when DeSantis signed his death warrant.
Speaker 3: He said, literally, two vans pulled in. A few minutes later,
Speaker 3: a door to the wing opened up. The warden called
Speaker 3: his name and said, it's time. The governor has signed
Speaker 3: your warrant.
Speaker 2: So he got.
Speaker 3: Handcuffs, shackles, waste chain, and he was escorted past all
Speaker 3: his friends that he had spent all this time and
Speaker 3: death row with saying goodbye, and going into a van
Speaker 3: heading to death death watch basically where he had to
Speaker 3: sign copies of his death warrant and go to the
Speaker 3: Q where he now yes, had a plexiglass a bunk,
Speaker 3: a locker, a small table, a toilet, a sink, but
Speaker 3: he had to let go of all of his limited
Speaker 3: personal property, including his phone, access to internet. All of
Speaker 3: that gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the execution still might go through. I mean, the
Speaker 1: execution still might happen. I'm not sure how active, how
Speaker 1: long the warrants they active. I think they go a
Speaker 1: little while. I think they anticipate these things, do they not?
Speaker 1: Isn't the warrant active? They don't have to sign another one,
Speaker 1: do they?
Speaker 3: I don't believe now once you go past the date though,
Speaker 3: I don't know when they extended it to you know how,
Speaker 3: Sometimes they extend the death warrant where they give themselves
Speaker 3: some time in case there's some sort of issue, usually
Speaker 3: only a day. I thought, yeah, I'm not sure how
Speaker 3: this is going to work. But he is still sitting
Speaker 3: there from what we understand, because it is in limbo
Speaker 3: right now in this Q block basically, or Q wing
Speaker 3: is what it's called. And it's just interesting to hear
Speaker 3: him talk about what it's like in these final days
Speaker 3: for death re inmates. He was expecting it to be
Speaker 3: about thirty days. He said, I miss emailing. I mostly
Speaker 3: miss music. The silence is constant. I miss seeing outside.
Speaker 3: The two windows are painted over. You can only see
Speaker 3: their outline. He says that an officer a station in
Speaker 3: front of his cell twenty four to seven, logging everything
Speaker 3: he does, and he is allowed to write on this tablet,
Speaker 3: which then his words were able to be published. But
Speaker 3: he has a space where he says final words because
Speaker 3: he is preparing to die, he said. My legal team
Speaker 3: continues to fight. They have not stopped since the warrant
Speaker 3: was issued. But this is where I say goodbye to
Speaker 3: those who have read my work. I wanted to write
Speaker 3: this last piece because, as I see it, it's time.
Speaker 3: Keep me in your prayers and thank you for the support.
Speaker 3: It's I just didn't know that there was even an
Speaker 3: outlet for inmates like this to just basically communicate with
Speaker 3: the outside world about what it's like to be on
Speaker 3: death row or what it's like to await your execution date.
Speaker 1: I guess some people find it, I don't know, interesting,
Speaker 1: fascinating part of someone's story. I don't know. There might
Speaker 1: be others looking at that and find it disgusting. Why
Speaker 1: do they get this out and why do they get
Speaker 1: to put a message out? But they have freedom of speech.
Speaker 1: I guess they shouldn't be kept from speaking. They are
Speaker 1: allowed to profit from their crime, so there are some
Speaker 1: types of rules put in place. But I just wonder
Speaker 1: as you were reading that, I just I wonder what
Speaker 1: the mom of the victim feels about him having a message.
Speaker 1: I wonder if she's even aware, does she even check in?
Speaker 1: I just I don't know he's writing as the sympathetic
Speaker 1: figure in this whole thing. If he's an innocent man,
Speaker 1: obviously he's a sympathetic figure. But I just haven't studied
Speaker 1: the case. But I have seen enough of the folks
Speaker 1: who are studying this case who do have opinions on
Speaker 1: this case. It's just not that ground swell of in
Speaker 1: a sense that's being out there for this sense.
Speaker 3: To your point, and it's one thing to proclaim your innocence,
Speaker 3: it's another thing to have a whole other group of
Speaker 3: folks who devote their lives to trying to do their
Speaker 3: best to make sure that people who are innocent, who
Speaker 3: haven't been properly represented or who haven't had a fair trial,
Speaker 3: actually make sure that they and their rights are protected. Yes,
Speaker 3: there's no group that has come to his aid or
Speaker 3: have come out to say he didn't do it. He's
Speaker 3: an innocent man. He's pretty much at this point the
Speaker 3: only person other than his attorneys who say he's innocent.
Speaker 1: So I mean, we should see again, Robes. I'd see
Speaker 1: it through, not to the point of being unreasonable. If
Speaker 1: you want to, Yes, give him the lab, let them test.
Speaker 1: Then it comes back inconclusive. What do we do then, Well,
Speaker 1: since we don't know for sure, then the least you
Speaker 1: could do is commute his sentence.
Speaker 2: Is that what they're setting up?
Speaker 1: This could probably a media narrative. This could all be
Speaker 1: a pr campaign to get us talking about it, to
Speaker 1: get more people interested in this thing, to where there
Speaker 1: is a ground swell of support for him and attention
Speaker 1: for him, and maybe you get some big names on
Speaker 1: TV talking about him.
Speaker 2: Who knows that lawyers are doing the job trying to
Speaker 2: keep a man alive and I can't fault them for that.
Speaker 3: Wow, I got it too, I got it too. And
Speaker 3: he talks about clemency and what does clemency mean if
Speaker 3: that's what he's actually seeking at this point? But he said,
Speaker 3: it's a chance to convince those in charge who you are,
Speaker 3: not making excuses for why you were here, but showing true,
Speaker 3: honest change by presenting testimony, evidences, witnesses and making the
Speaker 3: argument I am not now who I was. Then I
Speaker 3: guess he's talking about other crimes. When I read that,
Speaker 3: he's writing about what clemency means and how it's not
Speaker 3: being extended to inmates in Florida. If he's talking about himself,
Speaker 3: he's claiming he was innocent from the beginning. So that's
Speaker 3: a strange premise to write about tritle. And that's what
Speaker 3: it seems like. That is what he seems like.
Speaker 2: You should that makes sense, knock yourself out. But how
Speaker 2: just how far do we take this thing?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: How far is it allowed? And to his argument about
Speaker 1: clemency rose, what are we supposed to do to folks
Speaker 1: if you have a ten year sentence and then you
Speaker 1: go back to the judge in three years and say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm a changed man. I shouldn't be here for ten
Speaker 1: years because I have been changed. Would we listen to
Speaker 1: that person or would we say no, you need to
Speaker 1: serve your time as justice has been laid out for
Speaker 1: what you did. Take James Dunckett. You're saying I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to see through the punishment I was given for
Speaker 1: my crime because now I'm a different man than I was.
Speaker 1: That ain't how it works.
Speaker 2: It's just not and that's you got to.
Speaker 1: Take issue with it. But Robes, I compare him to
Speaker 1: anybody else in jail who's going to say, Hey, I'm
Speaker 1: different now, so that sentence doesn't count. No, you're being
Speaker 1: punished for what you did at the time when you
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 3: Yep. I know you make a very good noise, and
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people feel exactly the same
Speaker 3: way as you. It'll be interesting to see a what
Speaker 3: the results are come Thursday, if there are new results coming,
Speaker 3: and be what happens next to James Duckett.
Speaker 1: This is the one I was just thinking, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: if we get word the execution is not going to
Speaker 1: go through and he's going to be spared and he's
Speaker 1: just going to get life in prison. Or if they
Speaker 1: go through with the execution, do you have a preference?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, not that. How do you feel either way? Right?
Speaker 1: If they decide to execute this man, if they decide
Speaker 1: not to, My first thought went to the mom of
Speaker 1: the victim who wants this guy executed, and so I
Speaker 1: to think his sentence is commuted and we save a
Speaker 1: life is something I am on board with. But I
Speaker 1: have a problem being on board with it when the
Speaker 1: mother of the eleven year old who was drowned, raped
Speaker 1: says I need this justice. If I have a hard
Speaker 1: time going against that.
Speaker 3: I know we always. I do think that they're should
Speaker 3: be weight given to the victim's family. I think ultimately
Speaker 3: what their wishes are should be considered alongside the sentencing.
Speaker 3: But at this point, we just know that he was
Speaker 3: in fact sentenced to death. We will see what the
Speaker 3: Florida State Supreme Court decides on Thursday at five pm
Speaker 3: April seventh.
Speaker 1: Sorry, what did I no, no, no, no no, I'm just
Speaker 1: confirming the death warrant actually stays active for another week.
Speaker 1: Oh so April seven, Oh wow, thank you many time
Speaker 1: he wants you.
Speaker 3: Okay, wow, So that's interesting. So April second is when yep,
Speaker 3: we're going to hear next from the State Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: and that means they would have five days to actually
Speaker 3: carry out this execution if they choose to do so.
Speaker 2: I'm sure the state is like Yep, we are rare
Speaker 2: and go.
Speaker 3: I'm sure well. The prosecutor definitely signaled that they were,
Speaker 3: so of course, we will continue to keep our eye
Speaker 3: on this story and bring you the very latest In
Speaker 3: the meantime, though, thank you for listening to us. I
Speaker 3: made me Roebuck alongside TJ. Holmes. We will talk to
Speaker 3: you soon. Ten