Frank A. Walls, 58, is slated for execution on December 18.
Attorneys for condemned killer Frank Walls filed an emergency motion on Wednesday asking a federal appeals court to stay his scheduled execution, citing chronic health problems and concerns about Florida’s lethal-injection process. The motion was filed at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a day after U.S. District Judge Mark Walker refused to halt the execution. Walls was convicted in the 1987 murders of two people in Okaloosa County. He has also asked the Florida Supreme Court to block the execution on separate grounds.
The appeals-court motion argues that executing Walls by lethal injection would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Walls’ attorneys referenced a July medical exam showing that the 354-pound Walls suffers from hypertension, high cholesterol, a thyroid disorder, and chronic sleep apnea. The motion also cites alleged errors by the Florida Department of Corrections, which has carried out a record number of executions this year, including using expired drugs and incorrect drug quantities.
The lawyers contend that Walls’ health issues put him at heightened risk of pulmonary edema—a condition involving excess fluid in the lungs—during the execution.
“At issue here is the link between Walls’s complex health issues and the resultant increased risk of an intolerably painful death by pulmonary edema. The gruesome details of pulmonary edema—and the fact that it has been documented in the autopsies of other prisoners executed by the protocol—are crucial to the claim that Walls is in danger of intense pain and suffering, in violation of the Eighth Amendment,” Walls’ attorneys wrote.
They also pointed to errors in the lethal-injection process during some of Florida’s 18 executions this year.
“This is a case-specific challenge to the Department of Corrections using their protocol to kill a medically vulnerable prisoner like Walls during a sloppy, breakneck pace of executions,” the attorneys wrote.
Judge Walker rejected the arguments, stating that Walls could have raised these issues long before Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant on November 18.
“In short, Mr. Walls has demonstrated that, for years, some states and federal courts have questioned or abandoned a three-drug protocol like Florida’s to avoid cruel and unusual executions. This history is publicly known and well-documented, and he could have challenged the protocol before his death warrant was signed,” Walker wrote.
Walls was convicted in the July 22, 1987, murders of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson, who were shot after Walls broke into their home.
In his appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, Walls’ attorneys also argue that he is intellectually disabled and that executing him would violate the Eighth Amendment.
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