On Tuesday, the execution of a man who was found guilty of raping and killing a woman in the vicinity of a club in central Florida is slated to take place.
In the event that a last-day reprieve is not granted, Thomas Lee Gudinas, who is 51 years old, is slated to receive a fatal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was found guilty of the murder of Michelle McGrath, which occurred in May of 1994.
Gudinas would be the seventh person to be executed in the state of Florida this year, and the eighth execution is slated to take place the following month. During the year 2023, the state carried out six executions, although in the previous year, it only carried out one execution.
This year, a total of 23 individuals have been put to death in the United States, and further executions are expected to take place in 2025, making it the year with the highest number of executions since 2015.
This year, Florida has carried out the most executions of any state, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with every other state having carried out four executions. The state of Alabama has carried out three executions, the state of Oklahoma has carried out two, and the states of Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, and Tennessee have one apiece. On Wednesday, Mississippi will be the next state to carry out its first execution since 2022, joining the other states in doing so.
The last time anyone saw McGrath was on May 24, 1994, just before three o’clock in the morning, at a bar named Barbarella’s. Several hours later, her body was discovered in an alley next to a neighboring school, along with indications of major violence and sexual assault.
The previous evening, Gudinas had been at the same tavern with his companions; however, they all later testified that they had departed without him. Gudinas was then identified as a man who had been departing the area just before McGrath’s body was discovered by a school employee who had discovered McGrath’s body. Additionally, a different woman has recognized Gudinas as the individual who had pursued her to her vehicle the night before and threatened to harm her physically.
In 1995, Gudinas was found guilty and condemned to death for his crimes.
The attorneys representing Gudinas have submitted appeals to both the Supreme Court of Florida and the Supreme Court of the United States.
In the document that they submitted to the state, the attorneys contend that the evidence concerning Gudinas’s “lifelong mental illnesses” exempts him from being executed. Last Monday, the appeals were rejected by the Supreme Court of Florida, which ruled that the case law that protects those with intellectual disabilities from being executed does not apply to people who suffer from other types of mental illness or brain damage.
In the meantime, a federal lawsuit contends that the unrestricted power of the governor of Florida to sign death warrants violates the constitutional rights of death row inmates to due process and has resulted in an arbitrary process for selecting who lives and who dies. A decision has not yet been made public by the Supreme Court of the United States.
