The Florida Supreme Court has ordered the release of DNA data in the case of James Aren Duckett, who was facing an execution in March for the 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee in Lake County.
Duckett, 68, who was on duty as a Mascotte police officer at the time of the murder, was sentenced to death about a year after the girl’s body was discovered near a lake.
His jury voted 8–4 to recommend the death penalty.
Why was Duckett’s execution halted?
McAbee’s clothing contained a sperm sample, which was used to develop DNA test results earlier this year and after Gov. Ron DeSantis had signed a death warrant. Duckett had been set for execution on March 31 by lethal injection, but the Supreme Court issued a stay.
Duckett has maintained his innocence since the time of his arrest. With his execution pending, his defense team requested the sample be DNA tested.
A circuit judge in Lake County allowed the sample to be tested but then at a later hearing declined his defense team’s request for further analysis of the results, which were inconclusive.
The latest ruling comes after an April 2 filing by his defense appealing the circuit court’s denial of further DNA analysis and asking the higher court to overturn the decision.
In the April 30 order, the Supreme Court wrote, “For the foregoing reasons, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for the full results of Duckett’s DNA testing — namely, the underlying data — to be provided to him so that the statistical analysis he seeks may be performed by a qualified bioinformaticist.
“Furthermore, we instruct the circuit court to hold an evidentiary hearing if any dispute arises as to the extent of the data necessary for analysis. It is so ordered.”
According to a news release issued by Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the higher “Court found that he has not yet received the complete results of postconviction DNA testing that was ordered after the Governor signed his death warrant on February 27.
“The case now returns to the circuit court, where the underlying DNA data must be disclosed and further analysis may proceed. The stay of execution remains in place,” the release said.
Further, the state Supreme Court reversed a portion of the circuit court decision.
“The (Supreme) Court held that the circuit court erred in denying Duckett access to the underlying data necessary for a qualified expert to conduct further analysis — analysis that state officials themselves acknowledged may still be possible.”
“Given that Florida has more death row exonerees than any other state in the nation, we are encouraged that the Florida Supreme Court is taking this important step to ensure that he is not executed before all evidence is tested,” said Grace Hanna, executive director of FADP.
Hanna said there is irony in today’s Supreme Court decision because “this order comes on the same day that Florida is scheduled to execute James Hitchcock, another man who has maintained his innocence, sought DNA testing, and presented compelling evidence that another individual confessed to the crime on multiple occasions.”
“If the State has not even completed the scientific analysis of the DNA evidence, it cannot claim certainty about guilt,” Hanna said. “Today’s ruling confirms what we have been saying all along: the process is not finished, and the truth is still unresolved.”
Is Duckett tied to Polk County murders?
Duckett, a former Mascotte police officer, was on duty May 11, 1987, when he encountered 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee at a convenience store about 10 p.m. after she walked there to buy a pencil.
Duckett has long maintained that he saw Teresa talking to a 16-year-old boy and told both of them to go home. The boy and his uncle said Duckett drove off with Teresa in his car.
McAbee’s body was found the next morning by a fisherman in Knight Lake, about a mile from the store. Duckett was charged with murder five months later.
During the homicide investigation, Duckett was fired from the Mascotte police department once he was identified as a suspect. He then went to work at a Polk County phosphate mine.
After his arrest about five months after the murder, a now-retired detective for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office told The Ledger that Duckett was the prime suspect in at least one unsolved homicide, including the murder of 14-year-old Jeanifer Weldon, a Lake Gibson High School sophomore. Weldon’s body was found in a similar condition to McAbee’s in an area near the mine where Duckett worked.
Last month, as Duckett’s execution appeared to be moving forward, the Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the Weldon case, which remains a cold case.
Duckett final appeals process
Duckett’s defense contends his conviction was based on circumstantial evidence, including witness testimony that has since been recanted and forensic analysis that has been discredited.
The state’s case depended heavily on a single teenage witness who later said her testimony was false and the product of pressure from investigators, who threatened to take away her soon-to-be-due newborn if she refused to cooperate.
It also relied on microscopic hair comparison evidence that federal authorities later found to be scientifically unsound and overstated in court.
The appeal also asks the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling to block the defense’s public records request for text messages and email communications between the State Attorney’s Office, other state agencies and the DNA laboratory.
But in the latest ruling, the Supreme Court held that the public records request was unnecessary, a representative from FADP said. This was because the underlying data from the DNA testing and procedures and protocols from the testing lab DLI, and because the Court granted access to the underlying data in its opinion.
But the state has argued the test was conducted, and no additional analysis is required under Florida statute.
“The motion sought Single Nucleotide Polymorphism DNA testing of the biological material on slide Q6(3) and requested that the testing be performed by Othram Inc.,” the state wrote in an April 8 answer to Duckett’s appeal and request for a hearing.
Attorneys for the state continued, “The State did not object to DNA testing, provided that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement or its designee perform the testing as required by statute and rule.”
In the initial process of examining the DNA, the sample was sent to DNA Labs International in Deerfield Beach by FDLE. The next day, the state Supreme Court entered a stay of execution. Later, the test came back inconclusive.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Court orders DNA analysis for James Duckett in 1987 rape and murder
Reporting by Paul Nutcher, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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