ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—Florida is preparing to execute a man convicted of strangling his wife and brutally murdering another woman years earlier—a lethal injection that’s expected to proceed on schedule after he dropped all legal appeals and said he wants to accept his punishment.
James Phillip Barnes, 61, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at Florida State Prison in Starke. He would be the fifth person put to death in the state this year.
Mr. Barnes was serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife, 44-year-old Linda Barnes, when he wrote letters in 2005 to a state prosecutor claiming responsibility for the killing years earlier of Patricia “Patsy” Miller, a nurse who lived in a condominium in Melbourne, along Florida’s east coast.
Mr. Barnes represented himself in court hearings where he offered no defense, pleaded guilty to killing Miller and did not attempt to seek a life sentence rather than the death penalty. Miller, who was 41 when Barnes killed her, had had some unspecified negative interactions with him, according to a jailhouse interview he gave to film director Werner Herzog.
“There were several events that happened (with Miller). I felt terribly humiliated, that’s all I can say,” Mr. Barnes said in the interview.
Mr. Barnes killed Miller at her home on April 20, 1988. When he pleaded guilty, Mr. Barnes told the judge that after breaking into Miller’s unit, “I raped her twice. I tried to strangle her to death. I hit her head with a hammer and killed her and I set her bed on fire,” according to court records.
There was also DNA evidence linking Mr. Barnes to Miller’s killing. Mr. Barnes pleaded guilty to killing her and was sentenced to death on Dec. 13, 2007. He also pleaded guilty to sexual battery, arson, and burglary with an assault and battery.
Mr. Barnes killed his wife in 1997 after she discovered that he was dealing drugs. Her body was found stuffed in a closet after she was strangled, court records show. Mr. Barnes has claimed to have killed at least two other people but has never been charged in those cases.
Mr. Barnes had been in and out of prison since his teenage years, including convictions for grand theft, forgery, burglary, and trafficking in stolen property.
In the Miller case, state lawyers appointed to represent Mr. Barnes filed initial appeals, including one that led to mental competency evaluations. Two doctors found that Mr. Barnes had symptoms of personality disorder with “borderline antisocial and sociopathic features.” However, they pronounced him competent to understand his legal situation and plead guilty, and his convictions and death sentence were upheld.
Though unusual, condemned inmates sometimes don’t pursue every legal avenue to avoid execution. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that about 150 such inmates have been put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the death penalty as constitutional in 1976.
The Florida Supreme Court accepted the Brevard County ruling, noting last week that no other motion seeking a stay of execution for Mr. Barnes had been filed in state or federal court.
In the Herzog interview, Mr. Barnes said he converted to Islam in prison and wanted to clear his conscience about the Miller case during the holy month of Ramadan.
“They say I’m remorseless. I’m not. There are no more questions on this case. And I’m going to be executed,” Mr. Barnes said.
