State Supreme Court delays execution to allow a final appeal

Published Sunday, May 28, 2000, in the Miami Herald

TALLAHASSEE -- (AP) -- The Florida Supreme Court on Saturday announced that
it is delaying Wednesday's execution of Bennie Demps to give his attorneys
time to complete a final appeal.

Attorney Bill Salmon had asked for the extension on Thursday, saying that his
wife just had lung surgery and he would not have been able to complete his
brief by Saturday's deadline.

About six hours before the deadline, the justices agreed to give him and
co-counsel George F. Schaefer until Thursday to submit the paperwork. Unless
they issue another delay or overturn Demps' sentence, he could now be
executed as early as 5 p.m. June 7.

Demps, 49, was first sent to death row for two 1971 murders in Winter Garden.

But those death sentences were reduced to life prison terms when the U.S.
Supreme Court halted capital punishment.

In 1976, prison guards at Florida State Prison found Alfred Sturgis bleeding
in his cell. On his way to a hospital, Sturgis told a prison guard that Demps
and another inmate held him down while a third stabbed him.

Demps was sentenced to death. The other two were sentenced to life in prison.

His latest appeal is based on a memo by a prison employee, written the day
after Sturgis' murder, talking about the attack by a single ``assailant.''
Salmon argued that it could have been used to cast doubt on the testimony
against Demps.