Florida To Execute Man For Rape, Murder Of Girl
STARKE (CBSMiami/AP) – Eddie Wayne Davis, convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl 20 years ago, is scheduled for to be executed Thursday.
The State of Florida is set to execute Davis, 45, Thursday at 6 PM at Florida State Prison.
Davis's execution would be the state's sixth execution this year.
Davis was convicted in 1995 of kidnapping Kimberly Waters from an ex-girlfriend's home in Lakeland before raping and murdering her, then leaving the girl's body in a trash bin.
Davis' execution would be the second in Florida since the lethal injection process has come under fresh scrutiny in April, when Oklahoma prison officials stopped the execution of Clayton Lockett after noticing the deadly drug cocktail was not being administered into his vein properly. Lockett died minutes later of a heart attack.
Florida uses a three-drug cocktail to execute prisoners: midazolam hydrochloride, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
The drugs are administered intravenously, and are intended to first induce unconsciousness, then paralysis and, ultimately, cardiac arrest. Midazolam, a sedative used commonly in surgery, has been part of the three-drug mixture since 2013. Sodium thiopental was used before that, but its U.S. manufacturer stopped making it and Europe banned its manufacturers from exporting it for executions.
Davis has made a last-ditch appeal to have his execution delayed, arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that he had a health condition that made injection of the drugs incredibly painful, which his lawyers argue violates the Eight Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Waters' mother died in a 2004 motorcycle crash, but her grandmother Mary Hobbs says she plans to witness Davis' execution to represent her daughter and granddaughter.
"My daughter never lived to see this happen and that just breaks my heart," she told The Associated Press.
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