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USA - Florida. Duane Owen, 62, White, was executed
June 15, 2023: (June 15, 2023) - Duane Owen, 62, White, was executed. He was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. after a lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Stark. One of Florida’s longest-held death row inmates, Owen was 23 at the time of the attacks and 62 when he was executed.
Owen declined to make a final statement. The procedure began at 6:01 p.m., with Owen’s arms twitching and his breathing becoming heavier as the sedative took effect. The warden made sure Owen was unconscious before before lethal drugs were administered.
Owen was sentenced to death for the March 24, 1984, rape and fatal stabbing of Karen Slattery, 14, and for the May 28, 1984 rape and deadly hammer attack on Georgianna Worden, 38. Both killings occurred in Palm Beach County.
On June 21, 1984, Owen confessed to the Worden and Slattery murders. Authorities said Owen attacked two other women in Palm Beach County who survived. All four attacks occurred just before and after Owen’s 23rd birthday.
In two separate trials Owen was sentenced to the death penalty in 1985 and 1986. Besides his death sentences, he also had received six life sentences.
Owen sat for a new trial in 1999 for the murder of Slattery, claiming that he was insane and looking for hormones to help him transition into a woman the night he killed Slattery. He was sentenced to death again at the conclusion of his 1999 trial. Owen appealed the verdict, claiming his troubled childhood wasn't rightfully represented during the trial. The troubled childhood in question included an alcoholic mother, who passed away when Owen was 11 years old, his own alcohol and drug use since the age of 9 and a father who took his own life when Owen was 13.
Owen’s lawyers had argued that he shouldn’t be executed on grounds of insanity. The state Supreme Court rejected his latest appeal last week and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected it Wednesday.
Owen’s lawyers had also argued that he was schizophrenic and suffered from delusions.
Prosecutors had argued that while Owen had mental health issues, nothing would preclude his being executed because he was aware it was punishment for his crimes.
And while the defense had argued Owen had dementia and gender dysphoria, psychiatrists for the state said Owen had a good memory, didn’t appear to present himself as female and that gender dysphoria doesn’t make people more aggressive or cause delusional thinking. They said instead that Owen was sexually sadistic, according to court records.
It was Florida’s fourth execution this year. Gov. DeSantis, a Republican, signed each of the death warrants in the months before announcing he was running for president.
Owen becomes the 4th execution in Florida this year, the 103rd since Florida resumed executions in 1979, the 13th person executed nationally in 2023, and the 1,571st overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.
https://apnews.com/article/execution-florida-crime-death-penalty-d49e5c9b58de4952a08cf8d418857e3d
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/duane-owen-sentenced-by-non-unanimous-jury-is-scheduled-to-be-floridas-fourth-execution-of-the-year (Source: Associated Press, 15/06/2023)
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