Bennie E. Demps is a 47 year old African American male currently living under
under the sentence of death at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida, having been convicted in 1978 of killing an inmate named Alfred Sturgis.
Quite simply he is innocent of this crime and has spent the last 20
years accumulating the necessary evidence to prove it. Several inmates
were locked up during the investigation, which resulted in three men being
indicted for the Sturgis death. The three were viewed by prison officials,
as political militant leaders of Black inmates. Bennie's co-defendants both received
life sentences and only he was given a death sentence.
Bennie Demps has fought this conviction for the past twenty years, has survived three execution warrants - 1982, 1987, 1990 and in all probability,
is on his last appeal.