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Bush schedules two June
executions
By JACKIE HALLIFAX Associated
Press
Web-posted:
11:23 p.m. May 30, 2000
TALLAHASSEE -- The state made plans Tuesday
to execute Bennie Demps and Thomas Provenzano next
month.
Provenzano, who gunned down three
bailiffs when he opened fire in an Orlando courthouse in 1984,
believes he faces execution because he is Jesus
Christ.
Demps survived his first two death
sentences for 1971 murders when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped
capital punishment across the country in 1972. But a few years
later, not long after the nation's high court approved Florida's new
death penalty law, Demps was condemned a second time for the fatal
stabbing of a fellow prisoner.
After Gov. Jeb
Bush ordered that Demps and Provenzano be executed in June, prison
officials made plans to execute Demps at 6 p.m. on June 7 and
Provenzano at 6 p.m. June 20.
Both executions
will be by lethal injection.
Demps, 49, was
originally scheduled to be executed today, but Saturday the state
Supreme Court granted him a stay until 5 p.m. on June 7 to give his
new lawyer time to prepare his appeal.
Provenzano, 50, was originally scheduled to go to Florida's electric
chair last July but his claim of insanity delayed his
electrocution.
A day later, the bloody
execution of Allen Lee "Tiny" Davis, scheduled to be executed a day
after Provenzano, resulted in another legal challenge to
electrocution.
After the U.S. Supreme Court
agreed to review use of Florida's electric chair, state legislators
in January made lethal injection the state's primary method of
execution.
Provenzano has claimed to be Jesus
Christ for more than 20 years -- since before he walked in the
courthouse in January 1984 armed with a shotgun, an assault rifle, a
revolver and a knapsack carrying ammunition, all hidden under a
large Army-style jacket.
Last week, Florida's
high court ruled that Provenzano's delusion isn't enough to stop his
execution.
Provenzano is condemned for the
murder of William "Arnie" Wilkerson. Provenzano's other victims
include Harry Dalton, who was paralyzed and died seven years after
the shooting, and Mark Parker, who remains paralyzed from the
shoulders down.
A trial judge concluded in
December that even though Provenzano believes he will be executed
because he is Jesus, he is sane enough to be
executed.
Demps, a Vietnam veteran, was first
sent to Death Row for two 1971 murders in Winter Garden. But those
sentences were reduced to life prison terms when the U.S. Supreme
court halted capital punishment across the country in
1972.
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