USA: Wendell Grissom in Oklahoma and Edward James in Florida executed on the same day

On Thursday, two prisoners were executed nine hours apart in two different US states, one in the morning and the other in the evening.

Oklahoma

On Thursday morning, 56-year-old Wendell Arden Grissom was executed by lethal injection in the US state of Oklahoma. He had been sentenced to death for shooting dead a 23-year-old woman during a burglary in 2005.

In a plea for clemency at his mitigation hearing, his lawyers blamed his actions on brain damage due to a problematic birth and motorcycle accidents.

Just 13 minutes after the scheduled execution time, Grissom was pronounced dead, which speaks for a quick and uncomplicated execution. He himself had not testified at the clemency hearing and had not made any last-minute appeals.

He had already asked about the death penalty in his first police interrogation and indicated that he intended to seek it. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here,” he explained.

Prosecutors allege that Grissom acted out of hatred towards women, particularly his ex-wife. According to testimony at trial, he had texted his ex-wife a week before the murder that he was going back to his “old ways” and hoped she would have an accident and burn to death.

Grissom had apologized in a confession, saying, “I didn’t plan or intend for any of this to happen. I don’t know why it happened,” he said. “I just know it was senseless and I wasn’t in my right mind. … I wish to God it had never happened.”

Florida

On Thursday evening, 63-year-old Edward “Eddie” James was executed by lethal injection in the US state of Florida. He was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl and her 58-year-old grandmother in 1993.

Edward James was heavily drunk and drugged at the time of the crime – over 20 beers plus gin and LSD. His father had incited him to consume drugs and alcohol at the age of 11.

He pleaded guilty at trial and asked for a life sentence without the possibility of parole, but the court handed down the death sentence even though the jury had not voted unanimously in favor of it.

James’ attorneys had filed several appeals in state and federal courts, all of which were denied. Most recently, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the argument that his longtime drug and alcohol use, multiple head injuries and a heart attack in 2023 had led to a mental decline that would make an execution unconstitutional. The justices instead agreed with a lower court’s ruling that “James’ cognitive problems do not protect him from execution.”

The court also rejected James’ lawyers’ argument that a heart attack he suffered in prison led to oxygen deprivation that affected his brain. In January 2023, Edward James had suffered a near-fatal heart attack while on death row, depriving his brain of oxygen for nearly half an hour.

For two years, his lawyers fought to obtain medical records confirming the extent of his brain damage. In fact, his medical condition was serious. He suffered from memory loss, signs of dementia and seizures, which had been exacerbated by his drug addiction prior to his incarceration and the effects of the cardiac arrest. Four days after the lawyers finally received the documents, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the execution order.

The organization “Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty” (FADP) declared after Edward James’ death sentence was carried out: “It is not possible to separate the entire person from his actions in a single day. Yes, we have executed the man who pleaded guilty to tragically taking the lives of Betty Dick and Toni Neuner. We grieve for them and understand the pain of their families. But we also executed a father, a son, a friend and a man who was no longer a danger to anyone.”

Sources:
https://eu.oklahoman.com/story/news/2025/03/20/oklahoma-executes-wendell-arden-grissom-for-2005-senseless-murder/82546801007/
https://panow.com/2025/03/20/florida-man-is-executed-for-the-killings-of-an-8-year-old-girl-and-her-grandmother/
https://www.fadp.org/statement-on-the-execution-of-edward-james/
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stay-the-execution-of-eddie-james