TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block next week’s scheduled execution of Samuel Smithers for the murders of two women in Hillsborough County, rejecting arguments that he should be spared because he is 72 years old.

Justices turned down arguments that it would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment and a similar part of the Florida Constitution to execute the senior citizen.

“Smithers argues that this (Florida Supreme) Court should break new ground in concluding that his execution, at 72 years of age, would constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and Florida’s corresponding constitutional provision. … No opinion of the United States Supreme Court or this (Florida Supreme) Court has held that the elderly are categorically exempt from execution,” the opinion said.

U.S. Supreme Court precedents prevent executing people with intellectual disabilities and people who committed their crimes as juveniles.

“Smithers has claimed neither intellectual disability nor incompetency to be executed as bars to his execution,” Tuesday’s opinion said. “Rather, he argues that because of his advanced age of 72 years, executing him would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sept. 12 signed a death warrant for Smithers, who would be the 14th inmate executed this year in Florida — a modern-era record. The execution is scheduled Oct. 14 at Florida State Prison, though attorneys for inmates under death warrants typically file final appeals at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Smithers was convicted of murdering Denise Roach and Christie Cowan in 1996 at a secluded property where he worked as a caretaker in eastern Hillsborough County and dumping their bodies in a pond.

A 1999 sentencing order posted on the Florida Supreme Court website with the Smithers death warrant said he picked up Roach and Cowan at a motel at different times to have “sex for money.” He drove them to the property, where they were bludgeoned to death.

A brief filed at the Florida Supreme Court by Smithers’ attorneys said only 16 people over age 70 — and none in Florida — have been executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, after a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling halted it.

The Sept. 29 brief said execution of “society’s most vulnerable persons, such as the elderly, serves no deterrent or retributive effect.”

“The execution of Mr. Smithers no longer serves the intended and stated purposes of the death sentence,” his attorneys argued. “Executing Mr. Smithers, a 72-year-old person, offends the evolving standards of decency and is cruel and unusual punishment. The Florida Legislature has offered special considerations and protection to the elderly due to their fragility as a class.”

Tuesday’s opinion was fully shared by Chief Justice Carlos Muniz and Justices John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso. Justice Jorge Labarga concurred in the result, while Justice Charles Canady was recused.

Florida has set a modern-era record this year by executing 13 inmates. The previous record for a year was eight executions in 1984 and 2014. The modern era represents the time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

DeSantis also has signed a death warrant to execute Norman Grim on Oct. 28 in the 1998 murder of a woman in Santa Rosa County.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/10/07/florida-supreme-court-refuses-to-block-seniors-execution/