09 August 2023 :
(August 4, 2023) - James Phillip Barnes, 61, White, was executed.
Barnes died by lethal injection at 6:13pm Thursday at Florida State Prison in Starke.
Lying on a gurney, Barnes appeared to already have his eyes shut when the curtain was opened for witnesses. He didn’t respond when prison officials asked if he had a final statement, and he remained motionless except for breathing for about 10 minutes until that stopped. A doctor then pronounced him dead.
He had dropped all of his legal appeals and said he was set to accept his punishment after 16 years on death row.
In 2005, while serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife Linda Barnes, 44, Barnes wrote letters to a state prosecutor, confessing to the April 20, 1988 killing of Patricia 'Patsy' Miller.
The confession came some eight years into his incarceration. DNA evidence later linked him to the killing, and a jury ultimately sentenced him to death in 2007.
Barnes represented himself in court hearings where he offered no defense, pleaded guilty to killing Miller and did not attempt to seek a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
Miller had some previous unspecified negative interactions with him, according to a jailhouse interview he gave German film director Werner Herzog.
When he pleaded guilty, Barnes told the judge that after breaking into Miller’s unit, "I raped her twice. I tried to strangle her to death. I hit her head with a hammer and killed her and I set her bed on fire".
There was also DNA evidence linking Barnes to Miller’s killing. After pleading guilty, Barnes was sentenced to death on Dec. 13, 2007.
Barnes killed his wife in 1997 after she discovered that he was dealing drugs. Barnes has claimed to have killed at least two other people but has never been charged in those cases.
In the Miller case, state lawyers appointed to represent Barnes filed initial appeals, including one that led to mental competency evaluations. Two doctors found that Barnes had symptoms of personality disorder with "borderline antisocial and sociopathic features." However, they pronounced him competent to understand his legal situation and plead guilty, and his convictions and death sentence were upheld.
In the Herzog interview, Barnes said he had converted to Islam in prison and wanted to clear his conscience about the Miller case during the holy month of Ramadan.
Barnes becomes the 5th inmate to be put to death this year in Florida, the 104th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979, the 17th inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,575th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
