Death Row prisoner's bid for hearing rejected

An attempt to halt execution plans for a convicted killer failed in an Alachua County courtroom Friday.

Chief Circuit Judge Robert Cates told attorneys he was "inclined to deny" a motion for a hearing that would delay Bennie Demps' execution. Last month, Gov. Jeb Bush signed the inmate's death warrant.

Demps, 49, is set to die on May 31 for the September 1976 murder of fellow inmate Alfred Sturgis at Florida State Prison near Starke. Before his death, Sturgis told an officer that Demps and another inmate held him down while a third inmate stabbed him.

Demps' defense argued Friday that a letter from prison officials, who investigated Sturgis' death, did not implicate Demps in the attack. A defense motion requested Cates to grant a hearing on the information that would have postponed Demps' execution.

The state had argued the information was not newly discovered or admissible.

After Cates' denial, the case now heads to the Florida Supreme Court for review.

Earlier this year, some prosecutors had projected that Demps' execution wouldn't be scheduled for years. Demps was sentenced to death in 1978. Before Bush signed the recent warrant, Demps had survived three death warrants by getting last-minute appeals.

Although set to die for Sturgis' death, Demps was originally condemned for the 1971 murders of R.N. Brinkworth and Celia Puhlick. They were fatally shot in a Lake County citrus grove. Celia Puhlick's husband, Nicholas, was wounded in the attack.

The victims were inspecting some land for sale when they came across Demps. He had fled into the grove with a stolen safe.

A year after being sent to Death Row, Demps was taken off after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against capital punishment.

In 1976, Florida's new capital punishment law was upheld. Two months later Sturgis was stabbed.

If Demps' execution is carried out, he will be the third person to die by lethal injection in Florida this year.

Lise Fisher can be reached at 374-5092 or fisherl@gvillesun.com.

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