BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Scheduled to die in Florida’s execution chamber, Brevard County convicted double-murderer James Barnes asked to fire his attorneys and dismiss all legal proceedings last month in order to “proceed straight to execution,” a court transcript shows.
“I am prepared for execution. Don’t drag this out,” Barnes told a Brevard Circuit Court judge during a June 27 case-management conference, according to News 6 partner Florida Today.
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Barnes is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
He was sentenced to death for the April 1988 rape and murder of Patricia “Patsy” Miller in Melbourne. He is also serving a life sentence for the December 1997 strangulation murder of his estranged wife, Linda. Investigators discovered her body inside a bedroom closet at her home in a quiet neighborhood off Eber Boulevard.
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“He elected to proceed with the execution. It may sound odd to you, but I’ve had a number of clients do that. It’s relatively common,” said Gerod Hooper, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel chief assistant. Based in Temple Terrace, the organization represents Central Florida defendants facing death sentences who have exhausted their direct appeals.
“Right now, we’re in the middle of a heat wave. It’s like 102 degrees in Florida, and there is no air conditioning on death row. I think Barnes has been there close to 20 years in a (small) cell with no air conditioning,” Hooper said.
“Many clients are out to just get it over with,” he said.
Barnes declined to participate in media interviews prior to his execution, according to the Florida Department of Corrections public affairs office.
However, the 48-page transcript of a June 27 case-management video conference reveals Barnes’ remarks and clues to his mindset. Conducted via Microsoft Teams from the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Justice Center in Viera, the conference occurred five days after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Barnes’ death warrant.
Before introductions had even wrapped up during the opening minutes of the video conference, Barnes moved to discharge his attorneys and represent himself pro se.
Minutes later, Ali Shakoor, his lead attorney during the conference, had just started speaking when Barnes interjected.
“Ali, you’re fired,” Barnes said — prompting Brevard Circuit Judge Steven Henderson to warn him that he would mute his microphone if he kept interrupting.
Shakoor asked the court to appoint a doctor to perform a competency evaluation out of an abundance of caution, given Barnes’ history of mental illness. Barnes’ 2007 death-sentence order noted that a forensic-psychology expert testified he was a psychopath with “an extreme mental disorder.”
But Assistant Attorney General Patrick Bobek told the judge that Barnes had been found competent to proceed during past evaluations, and he has no mental illness. Bobek said Barnes “has a pretty robust understanding of the legal process that he’s facing.”
Barnes told the judge he had earned a high school diploma and community college credits, and he had worked as a law clerk in prison, helping inmates submit court documents.
“I do not wish to delay justice,” Barnes told the judge.
Henderson granted Barnes’ motion to dismiss all pending legal proceedings and appellate review. In his order, he found Barnes competent and intelligent, and he “does not have mental illnesses that would interfere with his rational understanding of the facts of his pending execution and the reason for it.”
During the video conference, Shakoor said defense attorneys had hired experts to look into a couple of issues regarding access to records related to lethal injection. Asked for comment on the topic Tuesday, Hooper said the CCRC does not comment on active cases.
The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes the death penalty, has asked DeSantis to stay Barnes’ execution and commute his sentence to life without parole.
“James Barnes waived his right to defense counsel. Represented himself at trial. And then post-(death) warrant, discharged his counsel and waived all future appeals. And he seems to be willingly accepting the death penalty,” said Christie Arnold, FCCB associate for social concerns and respect life.
“However, that willing acceptance doesn’t absolve the state from bringing about the punishment,” Arnold said.
Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1
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