Florida will execute a criminal with a mental disability and will expand its record to 12 dead
David Joseph Pittman was convicted of killing his wife Marie parents in May 1990, with whom he was divorcing
Lawyers and activists called on Friday to stop the execution of David Joseph Pittman, a man with an alleged mental disability convicted of triple homicide. He will receive a lethal injection next Wednesday in Florida, which will raise his record of criminals killed by capital punishment this year to 12.
The defense Pittman filed a petition with the US Supreme Court asking to stop the act, approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis, arguing that the “state of Florida will execute a defendant with an intellectual disability in violation of the US Constitution.” “The Court's intervention is urgently needed to prevent Pittman's imminent execution despite the protections afforded the death penalty by the Eighth Amendment,” the court document states. Civil organizations have also asked to stop the death of the man convicted of killing his wife Marie's parents, whom he was divorcing, in May 1990 in Mulberry, a rural community east of Tampa, in central Florida. He stabbed Clarence and Barbara Knowles to death, in addition to slashing the throat of Bonnie, his 21-year-old daughter, and setting fire to the house, according to court documents, but his mother testified at the trial that he did not learn to speak until he was 4 years old, while A psychologist claimed he showed signs of brain damage.
In this context, associations such as Death Penalty Action and Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) asked Governor DeSantis for clemency, noting that Florida has already killed 11 criminals so far in 2025, after surpassing the record of nine in a single year on July 31.
"This execution would violate the US Constitution's prohibition on executing people with intellectual disabilities, and would place Florida among the few jurisdictions willing to ignore the categorical protections recognized by the US Supreme Court," argued the FADP petition.
The last execution in Florida, Just on August 28, it was the death of inmate Curtis Windom for a 1992 triple murder, and after Pittman, the death of Victor Jones is scheduled for September 30 for a double homicide.
Florida accounts for more than a third of the 30 criminals executed in the United States so far in 2025, which already surpassed 26 in all of 2024 and is the highest number in the last five years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.