Stay sought in scheduled Florida execution

Anti-death penalty sign posted on Flikr (Creative Commons).

With convicted murderer Donald David Dillbeck scheduled to be put to death Feb. 23, his attorneys Friday requested that the Florida Supreme Court issue a stay of execution.

Gov. Ron DeSantis last month signed a death warrant and scheduled the execution of Dillbeck, who was convicted in the 1990 stabbing death of a woman in a Tallahassee mall parking lot.

But in a series of documents filed Friday, Dillbeck’s attorneys pointed to his diagnosis with a condition related to being exposed to alcohol before birth.

The attorneys argued that the condition, Neurodevelopmental Disorder associated with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure, or ND-PAE, is “recognized by the medical community as an intellectual disability-equivalent condition.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that executing intellectually disabled people violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Dillbeck was sentenced to death in the murder of Faye Vann during a carjacking outside of a Tallahassee mall.

Dillbeck, who had escaped from prison, fatally stabbed Vann when she resisted.