James Aren Duckett, Appellant/Petitioner(s) v. State of Florida, Appellee/Respondent(s) (2026)

CORRECTED ORDER

The circuit court continues to have concurrent jurisdiction to rule on motions related to DNA testing and successive claims filed by the petitioner and nothing in this Court's prior scheduling order precludes these additional filings. The circuit court shall provide this Court a status report on all pending issues by Thursday, April 2, 2026, at 5:00 pm. The State's motion to lift stay of execution is denied. Appellant's motion to relinquish jurisdiction is denied as moot.

For more than three decades, the defendant has sat on death row for killing an eleven-year-old girl after raping her. The defendant's last post-conviction-relief effort came in 2019. The Governor's recent warrant for the defendant's execution prompted the defendant to throw a Hail Mary pass, one that sought to use newer DNA-testing technology to test an evidentiary slide that contained a sample swabbed from the victim's underwear during the 1987 murder investigation. Florida law entitles the defendant to this DNA testing at any time once the judgment and sentence become final, provided that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (“FDLE”) conducts the testing and that the results would “exonerate” him. See § 925.11(1), (2)(h), Fla. Stat.

The trial court granted the defendant's last-minute request for DNA testing and ordered that FDLE conduct or supervise the testing. This court stayed the defendant's execution, ostensibly as a precaution because the State retained control over the testing (which the statute happens to require) and the testing had not yet been completed—no one of course wanting to proceed with an execution while a DNA test is pending. Well, the State reported on Friday that the testing was complete, and the results were inconclusive, meaning there still is no exonerating evidence that demonstrates the defendant's actual innocence.

As I noted in my prior dissent, the test results at all events are not relevant to the defendant's appeal in case number 26-0449, which pertains only to the denial of his post-death-warrant, successive motion for post-conviction relief that the defendant filed and the trial court denied. The defendant's “due process” challenge in that motion to the “surprise” nature of the Governor's death warrant had zero merit on its face. And without the new exonerating DNA evidence that the defendant was hoping for, his successive claim asserting innocence in the same motion remains time-barred, as the trial court originally ruled.

The trial court's final order denying the defendant's last-ditch effort has been with us for review in accordance with our warrant schedule, and the trial court's order in that respect appears to have been the correct disposition. By definition, a final order means that all judicial labor has come to an end as to the cause at hand (here, the post-conviction claims asserted in the successive rule 3.851 motion). That undoubtedly is the case here, so no further proceedings could be had on that already denied motion that could justify continuing this court's stay.

Meanwhile, the rule 3.853 motion seeking DNA testing—in essence, a discovery motion filed as a matter of statutory right—had been previously granted, and the DNA testing now has been completed. Neither the defendant nor the State separately has challenged the ruling on the motion in this court. There being no exonerating evidence produced because of that testing, there is nothing further for the trial court to do regarding that motion either. Indeed, as has been the case for decades, the defendant has not produced any exonerating evidence to justify delaying his execution, which has been a long time coming.

This court should simply proceed to dispose of the defendant's appeal.¹ The stay need only be continued for so long as necessary to allow this court to finalize and issue that appellate disposition. Instead, the court unnecessarily (and without authority) injects further delay at the behest of the defendant. This court cited section 922.06(1), Florida Statutes, in its last order as its authority to issue the current stay. But that provision authorizes this court to issue a stay only when “incident to an appeal.” It was unclear even last week what appeal the stay was incident to, given that we already have a final order for review, and there is nothing further we need to decide the current appeal—any DNA-testing results submitted in the trial court being outside the record for this appeal anyway. Now that the results are in, we know that even our habeas jurisdiction is not implicated by the DNA testing.² Any continued proceedings in the trial court—though I do not see what else there is to do—could have no bearing on our present appellate jurisdiction, or even our habeas jurisdiction. I agree that we should deny the motion to relinquish jurisdiction, but we should grant the motion to lift the stay, effective on a date that reasonably allows us to promptly dispose of the appeal in case number 26-0449.

Justice for the victim and her family has been delayed far too long. The defendant's time is up, and we should not stand in the way any further than is necessary to complete our appellate work post haste.

A True Copy

Test:

KC

Served:

CAPAPPEALS TLH ATTORNEY GENERAL

LAKE CLERK

COURTNEY MARIE HAMMER

BRITTNEY LACY

HON. DANIEL B. MERRITT, JR.

CHARMAINE MILLSAPS

NAOMI NICHOLS

KENNETH NUNNELLEY

NICOLE ROCHELLE SMITH

HON. BRIAN JEROME WELKE

MARY WELLS

FOOTNOTES

1.   As I noted in my previous dissent, though consolidated, the habeas petition is a separate proceeding. It requires considerations that differ from those involved in the appeal. It makes no sense, then, to delay disposition of the appeal in case number 26-0449 (of what clearly is a final order) merely based on what may transpire (however unlikely that may be) in connection with the separate, non-appeal habeas proceeding—the only avenue for relief possibly remaining for the defendant pending his execution.

2.   I noted earlier that if there were to be a stay at all, it would be as a writ of injunction to protect our habeas jurisdiction in case number 26-0450—to protect against the very unlikely event that the last-minute DNA-testing results exonerated the defendant.

MUÑIZ, C.J., and LABARGA, COURIEL, GROSSHANS, FRANCIS, and SASSO, JJ., concur. TANENBAUM, J., dissents in part with an opinion.