TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Scrambling to try to prevent his scheduled execution next week, attorneys for Kayle Bates on Thursday appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Florida Supreme Court rejected their arguments.
Attorneys also filed an appeal Thursday on separate issues at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Bates, 67, is scheduled to be executed Tuesday in the 1982 murder of Janet Renee White, who was abducted from a State Farm insurance office where she worked in Bay County.
The Florida Supreme Court this week rejected a series of arguments, including that evidence of “organic brain damage” was not adequately considered before Bates received the death penalty during a 1995 resentencing proceeding.
Also, Bates’ attorneys argued jurors were misled to believe Bates could be released on parole in 12 years if he was not sentenced to death.
The appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court, which was accompanied by a motion for a stay of execution, focused on the issues about brain damage and the jury allegedly being misled.
“There can be nothing more arbitrary or capricious than receiving a death sentence because the jury mistakenly thought itself required to choose between 12 years more imprisonment and death,” Bates’ attorneys wrote.
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