Speaker 1: Hey, folks. It is Thursday, November twentieth, and a man
Speaker 1: is scheduled to die in a matter of hours in
Speaker 1: Florida by lethal injection. He is making an argument though,
Speaker 1: that the execution should be stopped. Why because it might
Speaker 1: be too painful for him? And with that, welcome to
Speaker 1: this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes. It's he has
Speaker 1: some logic here for why he might feel more pain
Speaker 1: than anyone else. I don't know if I've heard this
Speaker 1: argument necessarily before, and we have covered a bunch of
Speaker 1: executions here lately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the first one that I've heard that
Speaker 2: is trying to use a medical condition that he says
Speaker 2: will make lethal injection be torturous for him. We're talking
Speaker 2: about sixty three year old Richard Barry Randolph, and his
Speaker 2: attorneys say, yes, that injecting him with lethal injection will
Speaker 2: be tortuous because he has lupus. And lupus one of
Speaker 2: the side effects is that you have increased pain sensitivity,
Speaker 2: so it causes chronic pain, and it leads to nerve
Speaker 2: sensations like heightened nerve sensations basically, so your central nervous
Speaker 2: system is basically ramped up.
Speaker 1: It's painful.
Speaker 3: It can be something that.
Speaker 2: Would be painful to you and I would be extraordinarily
Speaker 2: painful to somebody who has lupus.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that's the argument this man is making. Don't
Speaker 1: know how far that's going to go, but that's certainly interesting. Robes.
Speaker 1: As we sit here getting ready for Florida now to
Speaker 1: continue a record pace, this will officially put them over.
Speaker 1: They have more than if his execution goes through tonight,
Speaker 1: they would have more than doubled their previous record for
Speaker 1: executions in a year. That's correct, and they're not even
Speaker 1: done after this one, that's right.
Speaker 2: So the previous record was eight executions in the state
Speaker 2: of Florida in one calendar year. Tonight's execution is number
Speaker 2: seventeen in the state of Florida, and Governor de Santa
Speaker 2: announced this week another execution that he's just put on
Speaker 2: the books for next month. So there are two more
Speaker 2: planned executions in the state of Florida alone. So yes,
Speaker 2: it looks like if things all go according to the
Speaker 2: plan Governor DeSantis has put in place, there will be
Speaker 2: a total of nineteen inmates executed in the state of Florida.
Speaker 1: And that's way ahead. Usually we have I don't think
Speaker 1: nobody surprised Texas leading the way. I guess Texas, Alabama,
Speaker 1: South Carolina are the ones now that have five There
Speaker 1: you go. So Florida is way out and way ahead,
Speaker 1: and Desantas has been signing death warrens left and right,
Speaker 1: it seems here lately now this road, we've covered several
Speaker 1: of these, most recently Tremaine Wood who's execution in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: He got commuted and he's life in prison. That was
Speaker 1: special circumstances of the case that folks thought were worthy
Speaker 1: of looking at. Not the argument being made for this
Speaker 1: guy when it comes to the crime itself. No.
Speaker 2: In fact, the only arguments attorneys have made is that
Speaker 2: he had a terrible childhood, that he did have an
Speaker 2: honorable service as a member of the military, but that
Speaker 2: he suffered PTSD, he was addicted to crack cocaine.
Speaker 3: So they were.
Speaker 2: Trying to kind of basically lay out as woe as me.
Speaker 2: I had a terrible lot in life and I made
Speaker 2: a really bad decision.
Speaker 3: But it has not worked.
Speaker 2: The Florida Supreme Court said, sorry, that is not an
Speaker 2: argument that you can make to take away a death penalty.
Speaker 1: Did I see right? One of the arguments was about
Speaker 1: is really a lack of love from his parents or
Speaker 1: his mom in particular, but apparently he had loving, adoptive,
Speaker 1: correct parents.
Speaker 3: The judge pointed that out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, I don't want to hear about your problem
Speaker 2: with your biological parents because you were adopted by a
Speaker 2: loving family. And he claimed though, that the mom who
Speaker 2: adopted him was an alcoholic and that the father was abusive.
Speaker 3: So you know, he's claiming all of these things.
Speaker 2: But I figure anyone who's in a situation like his
Speaker 2: probably could point to a terrible childhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all that's been rejected. I think the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court is the only thing that could save him. Now.
Speaker 1: Obviously Desanta's could save him tonight. Nobody is expecting that
Speaker 1: at all, of course, so that is his last hope.
Speaker 1: But this was a pretty This is another one row.
Speaker 1: If this crime was thirty eight years ago, Yes, that's
Speaker 1: a death row for thirty eight years.
Speaker 2: And that is what DeSantis is trying to clear us.
Speaker 2: He's saying, this is not justice, this is taking way
Speaker 2: too long. We are not we are not following through
Speaker 2: on what a jury has chosen as the fate of
Speaker 2: these prisoners, and we are just dragging our feet. There
Speaker 2: have been lots of reasons why, but he has now
Speaker 2: tried to speed up the process and he is certainly
Speaker 2: doing so. So, yes, this was a crime. It happened
Speaker 2: back in nineteen eighty eight, the murder of a sixty
Speaker 2: two year old woman, Minnie Ruth McCollums. She was working
Speaker 2: in a convenience store a small town, Florida, East Palatka.
Speaker 2: Never heard of it, but he was Richard Barry Randolph
Speaker 2: was a former co worker of her, so he knew her.
Speaker 2: And he went back to the store to rob the safe,
Speaker 2: that was his goal, and she interrupted him. She came
Speaker 2: in while he was trying to break into the safe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well he's twenty seven at the time and she's
Speaker 1: sixty What did you just say, sixty two? Sixty two
Speaker 1: year old lady. So this a scuffle ensues you off,
Speaker 1: certainly assume he has the advantage in that scuffle. So
Speaker 1: this is where it gets awful. He does beat her.
Speaker 1: He beats her repeatedly, essentially almost taking breaks from beating
Speaker 1: her so he can go continue to try to open
Speaker 1: the safe. If you can imagine that horror. He's essentially
Speaker 1: going back and forth between robbing and killing her essentially,
Speaker 1: and this went on for quite some time. This was
Speaker 1: a horrific scene they described.
Speaker 2: Yeah, prosecutors say it was prolonged and it was brutal,
Speaker 2: and they did. They pointed out the fact that he
Speaker 2: was taking the time to continue to try and break
Speaker 2: into the safe, and then he apparently said something to
Speaker 2: authorities alluding to the fact that she was stronger than
Speaker 2: he thought, like he was annoyed that she wouldn't die,
Speaker 2: so he was strangling her, he was beating her, he
Speaker 2: was stabbing her, and then he raped her. So this
Speaker 2: is horrific and he doesn't deny it. He admitted this.
Speaker 2: He actually showed police where the bloody clothes were that
Speaker 2: he stashed away when he was caught a short while later.
Speaker 2: So this is not a question of guilt or innocence,
Speaker 2: but the brutality of the crime speaks volumes and it
Speaker 2: is a tough one to stomach.
Speaker 1: And this is one now we keep an eye on
Speaker 1: robe to talk about lupus. Is this going to factor in.
Speaker 1: We've seen several lethal in jets. I's say scene, but
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, I don't mean that literally
Speaker 1: during the year, and there are different reports afterwards of
Speaker 1: what the witnesses say the inmate, how the inmate reacted
Speaker 1: to being getting those drugs. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are going to be watching closely tonight to
Speaker 1: see if this guy with lupes ends up, I don't know,
Speaker 1: having some kind of an adverse reaction.
Speaker 3: In extraordinary pain or not.
Speaker 2: It Also, it was you mentioned you asked how old
Speaker 2: she was, and I was looking at how old he was.
Speaker 3: I think it's so interesting.
Speaker 2: She was sixty two years old when he brutally painfully
Speaker 2: beat her. They were talking. By the way, she was
Speaker 2: alive when police found her. I want to point that out.
Speaker 2: She was alive, still clinging to life. She spent six
Speaker 2: days in the hospital before she finally succumbed to her injuries.
Speaker 2: He essentially beat her into a coma, and it was
Speaker 2: the brain injuries that ended up. Her brain swelled and
Speaker 2: she ended up dying. But she was stabbed in the throat.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was as excruciating as you could possibly imagine.
Speaker 2: She was sixty two. He is now sixty three. He
Speaker 2: got to live one year longer than her. But now
Speaker 2: he's upset and complaining about and concerned about and afraid
Speaker 2: of feeling extraordinary pain. I don't know how many people
Speaker 2: are going to feel very sympathetic when they read the
Speaker 2: crime and what he did, and there was zero regard
Speaker 2: for her pain, or her suffering or anything that this
Speaker 2: sixty two year old woman went through. So now he
Speaker 2: is sixty three and he will probably be spared, certainly
Speaker 2: given the circumstances of her death, some of the pain
Speaker 2: she experienced.
Speaker 1: Then we talk about what we talk about just recently
Speaker 1: about the end, right, we talked about, you know the
Speaker 1: story of these entertainment twins who died together double suicide,
Speaker 1: assisted suicide, and we were talking about in prison, if
Speaker 1: you gave people the option to die and to die
Speaker 1: pain painlessly, do you think people in prison with long
Speaker 1: sentences would take it? And you and I I think
Speaker 1: both said no, because in the end, people want to live.
Speaker 1: And so here he is prison, thirty eight years death row.
Speaker 1: This is the end, and he's fighting, fighting as hard
Speaker 1: as he can, coming up with anything he can because
Speaker 1: he wants to live. I'm always fascinated we all have
Speaker 1: this thing. It's inherent in us. It's just instinct to
Speaker 1: want to live, to want to survive. So we're not
Speaker 1: surprised to see any of this. He's trying everything he
Speaker 1: can to stay alive, no hope of getting out. He's
Speaker 1: not trying to, you know, get his conviction overturned. He
Speaker 1: just wants to live. I think that is it's always
Speaker 1: fascinating about these stories.
Speaker 2: It is fascinating. I absolutely agree with you, and you
Speaker 2: see it every time. Only one execution that I can
Speaker 2: remember from this year, and we have covered most of
Speaker 2: them where we had an inmate who said, yep, go
Speaker 2: ahead kill me.
Speaker 1: He skipped all the guy on in Florida.
Speaker 2: We don't want any more appeals, don't care about trying
Speaker 2: to get the Supreme Court to take a look at
Speaker 2: my case.
Speaker 3: Just go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1: Wasn't he also the one where they asked any last
Speaker 1: words and his response was simply no, And that was it.
Speaker 1: So yes, that is the only one.
Speaker 3: He is the exception.
Speaker 1: You are right.
Speaker 2: Most most in maids on death row, regardless of the
Speaker 2: quality of their life, it's still a life, and people
Speaker 2: there's a human instinct to live, to survive, regardless of
Speaker 2: your circumstances, and that is what we have seen time
Speaker 2: and time again. Now when we come back, there is
Speaker 2: an interesting part of this case. He and this is
Speaker 2: very rare. There was not a unanimous decision for the
Speaker 2: death penalty. In fact, when you hear what the spread
Speaker 2: was among the jury, it does raise some eyebrows and
Speaker 2: certainly has raised some questions as to whether.
Speaker 3: Or not that should be allowed.
Speaker 2: And continuing our coverage of Florida's seventeenth execution of the year,
Speaker 2: happening tonight, sixty three year old Richard Barry Randolph will
Speaker 2: die by lethal injection. He has made complaints and appeals
Speaker 2: to anyone who will listen to try and stay his
Speaker 2: execution or at least change the method of his execution.
Speaker 2: He has lupus, and he says that this is going
Speaker 2: to be a torturous death because of his condition, his
Speaker 2: nerve endings, his nervous system is already experiences more pain
Speaker 2: than most people. So to go through a lethal injection
Speaker 2: while suffering lupus, his attorneys had argued, was cruel and unusual.
Speaker 3: But that has fallen on deaf ears.
Speaker 1: And how did the judge put it? He really said, really,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to bring this up now, He.
Speaker 2: Said, You've had lupus for quite some time. You're just
Speaker 2: now bringing this up. You had years to try and
Speaker 2: change the method of execution, and you didn't. You chose
Speaker 2: to do it in the eleventh hour, which makes him
Speaker 2: feel like this is just an attempt to stay an
Speaker 2: execution rather than actually mitigate pain.
Speaker 3: So that is what the judge said. But there was
Speaker 3: something really.
Speaker 2: Interesting that I have learned so much as we've been
Speaker 2: covering these executions. But in Randolph's jury, the death sentence,
Speaker 2: there was a vote, right the jury votes. In most states,
Speaker 2: you have to have a unanimous decision by a jury
Speaker 2: to vote for the death penalty, and in some cases
Speaker 2: the judge can intervene. But his jury voted eight to four,
Speaker 2: and even the trial court at the time acknowledged that
Speaker 2: that narrow margin, they said, reflected significant disagreement about what
Speaker 2: the appropriate punishment was. They also pointed out that this
Speaker 2: jury only heard from one mitigation witness when there should
Speaker 2: have been more so they could have had a better
Speaker 2: clearer picture. They say, the jury didn't get to hear
Speaker 2: about his trouble childhood. They didn't get to hear about
Speaker 2: his crack addiction, or about his military service and all
Speaker 2: the good that he did. So there was a lot
Speaker 2: of frustration about that. Now listen to this, I didn't
Speaker 2: realize this. The Florida Supreme Court then changed this law
Speaker 2: and said death sentences have to be unanimous, and then
Speaker 2: they gave it. It had to happen in cases after
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, there was some sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So he missed out on that because it happened to early.
Speaker 3: And then just two.
Speaker 2: Years ago in twenty twenty three, the Florida State Leasure
Speaker 2: just wiped it all clean and said, you know what,
Speaker 2: you can have a non unanimous death sentence. Now they
Speaker 2: put it back to where it was, and so there
Speaker 2: have been other instances where you have seen that eight
Speaker 2: to four split.
Speaker 1: That is tough. Well, I don't think it's the way
Speaker 1: you talk. It's a tough, tough challenge for some to
Speaker 1: accept state sanctioned killings, right. I get it, it's a
Speaker 1: part of our system. But some people say these are monsters.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they need to be I find then others argue
Speaker 1: I'm not having the argument about it being deterrent. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, as a human being, it's uncomfortable the idea
Speaker 1: of us going through ceremony of killing somebody. So it
Speaker 1: was this guy. I still think this is a bigger
Speaker 1: part of a problem. For me, we've seen too many
Speaker 1: people exonerated when we're talking about somebody's life. We can't
Speaker 1: have eight to four decisions. We can't have it that
Speaker 1: kind of split. We need to be more sure than that.
Speaker 3: Agreed, and that is the split.
Speaker 2: If it had been nine or sorry, if it had
Speaker 2: been uh, what would have been been too?
Speaker 1: I'm not a saying eleven one still not eight.
Speaker 2: Four is what it is in the state of Florida
Speaker 2: now since they put it back in place. Guess what
Speaker 2: the only other state is that allows a non unanimous
Speaker 2: death sentence to stand.
Speaker 3: Alabama.
Speaker 2: Now they have a ten to two split, so they
Speaker 2: say it has to be it has to be higher.
Speaker 2: It's higher the threshold hire ten to two. That's to me,
Speaker 2: I was surprised eight to four. I had no idea
Speaker 2: that it could be that wide of a margin and
Speaker 2: still go through.
Speaker 1: We would never accept that margin when it comes to
Speaker 1: guilt or innocence. Now, so wide life or death. That's
Speaker 1: that's bizarre. It's strange. Yes, we have learned so much
Speaker 1: about the death penalty. We've learned a lot about cases
Speaker 1: mistakes would have made and how you need to sometimes
Speaker 1: dig a little deeper in a lot of these stories
Speaker 1: and not just read the headlines and you understand and
Speaker 1: can have Now even you don't have to have sympathy,
Speaker 1: but you can have at least some kind of compassion
Speaker 1: and sometimes not sympathy but empathy because you hear so
Speaker 1: much of what families are going through on both sides
Speaker 1: is you can relate to in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And there's pain all around in these stories. And it's
Speaker 1: rare to get a celebration robes. I know, the guy
Speaker 1: and Tremaine with Treminwood. Yet right, it's weird to have
Speaker 1: one where it feels like you are celebrated. Somebody died
Speaker 1: in that case, but here we are celebrating at least
Speaker 1: maybe that the system got it. Maybe not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent right, but goid it better.
Speaker 2: And look, all of these inmates, these death row inmates
Speaker 2: are never getting out of prison. They are all sentenced
Speaker 2: to life without the possibility of parole. So the question
Speaker 2: is do you go through a thirty six and in
Speaker 2: one case last week was it a forty seven year,
Speaker 2: forty six year, almost fifty years on death row? You know,
Speaker 2: do you go through that process with the appeals and
Speaker 2: with all of there's a financial burden when you when
Speaker 2: you sentence someone to death significantly than just putting someone
Speaker 2: in prison for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 3: And we've talked about this before too.
Speaker 2: When you have family members of the victims who don't
Speaker 2: want to see an eye for an eye take place
Speaker 2: in the name of their loved one who died, you
Speaker 2: know there are other We have learned so much about
Speaker 2: the fact that victims don't really have a voice in
Speaker 2: a lot of these cases. And it's surprising to me
Speaker 2: state by state just how different it is the rules
Speaker 2: and what has to be put in place or what
Speaker 2: laws need to be there for people to die without
Speaker 2: a unanimous decision, what methods yes it is.
Speaker 3: It is fascinating. I am surprised.
Speaker 2: We talk about how the death penalty it's never been
Speaker 2: proven to be a deterrent in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 2: But my god, I feel like after this year in Florida,
Speaker 2: you would think a criminal would say, maybe, if I'm
Speaker 2: going to commit a crime, I'm not going to do
Speaker 2: it in Florida.
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that, But you make a point
Speaker 1: if you see people actually following through on the death penalty,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people who are pro
Speaker 1: death penalty, will absolutely tell you that it's not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be a determined if we actually used it,
Speaker 1: So here we are. It's not a deterrent to be
Speaker 1: on death row for thirty forty fifty years.
Speaker 3: Not really.
Speaker 2: And first of all, people never think they're going to
Speaker 2: get caught. That's the number one reason why it's not
Speaker 2: a deterrent. But then yes, if you don't have states
Speaker 2: following through on the death penalties that they enact, if
Speaker 2: you're not enforcing it, then yes, it doesn't seem that scary.
Speaker 1: You make a good point, a financial one as well,
Speaker 1: because you hear it initially, welly is it more expensive? Right?
Speaker 1: You kill them and it's over. You're not taking care
Speaker 1: of him in prison anymore. This is thirty years of trials, appeals,
Speaker 1: attorneys taking them back and forth for quarter, all of that.
Speaker 2: And you have to have and you have to have
Speaker 2: that in place because of the innocent people who have
Speaker 2: been placed on death row. You have to give these
Speaker 2: inmates every last opportunity to try and reverse course or
Speaker 2: prove their innocence in a way that you wouldn't if
Speaker 2: someone just had a life sentence, Because it is life
Speaker 2: or death and We will of course be following this
Speaker 2: case as well as the other of three scheduled for
Speaker 2: the rest of the year, but in the meantime, thank
Speaker 2: you all for listening to us. I'm a me roboch
Speaker 2: alongside TJ.
Speaker 3: Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.