Emergency Application — James Aren Duckett, Applicant v. Florida

*** CAPITAL CASE ***

DOCKET NO.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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JAMES AREN DUCKETT,

Petitioner,

vs.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Respondent.

═════════════════════════════════

APPLICATION FOR A STAY OF EXECUTION

AND EXPEDITED CONSIDERATION OF PETITION FOR WRIT OF

CERTIORARI

DEATH WARRANT SIGNED

EXECUTION SET MARCH JULY 28, 2026, AT 12:00 P.M.

═════════════════════════════════

To the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Eleventh Circuit:

James Duckett is scheduled to be executed July 28, 2026, at 12:00 PM EDT.

This Court is Mr. Duckett’s last opportunity to access Florida’s statutory procedures

for testing available and untested DNA evidence that could provide Mr. Duckett’s

long maintained innocence, undermine his death sentence, and/or identify an

alternative suspect. Mr. Duckett sought a stay of execution from the Florida Supreme

Court. On July 24, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the Lake County

Circuit Court’s denial of his request for DNA testing pursuant to Fl. R. Crim. P. 3.853.

Duckett v. State, SC2026-1083 & SC2026-1084, 2026 WL 2137081 (Fla. July 24,

2026).

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Mr. Duckett respectfully requests a stay of execution pending this Court’s

disposition of his Petition for a Writ of Certiorari (“Petition”), filed simultaneously

with this Application, and expedited consideration of the Petition.

JURISDICTION

This Court has jurisdiction to entertain Mr. Duckett’s Petition and this

Application for a Stay of Execution under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1257(a) and 1651(a).

BACKGROUND

Mr. Duckett was convicted of one count of murder and one count of sexual

battery of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee and sentenced to death based only on

circumstantial evidence. There were no eyewitnesses linking Mr. Duckett to the

crime and no direct evidence has ever linked Mr. Duckett to the crime. Mr. Duckett

has steadfastly maintained his innocence for nearly 40 years and should be allowed

to test material items of evidence that were collected as part of the criminal

investigation that led to his wrongful conviction and sentence of death. Absent

immediate intervention from this Court, a wrongful execution will occur on July 28.

In 1987, at the time of the crime, several items were collected including the

victim’s underwear, her jeans, vaginal swabs, and fingernail clippings from each

hand. The initial analyst on the case made some extracts of the items and created

slides containing the extracts. These items were assessed but, at the time, forensic

DNA analysis was incredibly limited. However, the initial analyst did note the

presence of blood and semen on several of these listed items and the presence of

biological material on some of the slides. Due to the state of the science, no DNA

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testing or comparison could be completed at the time.

In 2003, the Florida Supreme Court remanded Mr. Duckett’s postconviction

proceedings to determine whether DNA testing could be done on the victim’s clothes.

Upon agreement of the parties, the items listed above were submitted for analysis. A

new analyst processed the items. However, due to the limitations in technology at the

time, she was unable to gain a useable profile from any of the items. This is notable

because it shows the issue is the sensitivity and capability of the testing at the time.

The analyst could not even detect the victim’s profile from the evidence.

The analyst opted not to test a few of the slides - several were broken and she

was concerned about a slide identified as Q6(3) because she did not have a procedure

to process the slide and she was concerned that the testing would fail. As a result, the

postconviction court in 2003 entered an order requiring that “any biological evidence

. . . be stored in a manner to insure the quality of the evidence is maintained . . . until

this case is closed, either by acquittal of [Mr. Duckett] . . . or by execution . . . .” (PCR1-SV. 2206) (emphasis added).

On February 27, 2026, Governor DeSantis signed a death warrant for Mr.

Duckett, initially setting his execution for March 31. At the outset of his proceedings,

the lower court found that identity was an issue at Mr. Duckett’s trial and that DNA

testing would exonerate Mr. Duckett, granting his request for DNA testing of slide

Q6(3) containing sperm extracted from the victim’s underwear (WR1. 748). In other

words, the State and court agreed that technology had come far enough that a

degraded sample processed using modern techniques could obtain a result that

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testing capabilities in 2003 could not and that Mr. Duckett has established that

probative results could lead to an exoneration.

The State, however, “was permitted to exercise complete control over the

location, timing, and method of [that] testing,” Duckett v. State, 431 So. 3d 990, 992

(Fla. 2026). As is outlined more fulling in the petition for certiorari, the slide was sent

to an agency that used a method that did not have the capability to produce a

definitive result: the results were inconclusive and the evidence was consumed in the

testing. After losing what was the best evidence capable of exonerating him, Mr.

Duckett sought DNA testing of similar items that would provide a comparable means

of identifying the true perpetrator (WR3. 36). He also filed a 3.851 motion alleging

that the State’s actions during the prior DNA testing resulted in the destruction of

key exculpatory evidence central to establishing his innocence and violated his right

to due process (WR3. 1). In response to his motions, the Governor reset Mr. Duckett’s

execution for two weeks later on July 28. It was not until then that the lower court

acknowledged Mr. Duckett’s filings and, after hearing brief argument, denied any

additional testing and postconviction relief (WR3. 212).

The State’s position is that Mr. Duckett’s successive motion for postconviction

DNA testing is procedurally barred because the items he sought to have tested could

have been included in his March 5 request for testing and that the record conclusively

establishes no biological material exists on the additional items. The circuit court and

Florida Supreme Court agreed.

This analysis ignores that Florida jurisprudence is devoid of any support for

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the court’s rulings. Rule 3.853 does not include a temporal limitation nor does it

preclude successive motions. The state court adopted the state’s reliance on Reynolds

v. State, 373 So. 3d 1124 (Fla. 2023), wherein the court determined that a capital

postconviction litigant was procedurally barred from DNA testing because the court

had already determined years earlier that he did not meet the requirements of Rule

3.853. Finding the evidence of guilt overwhelming, the court determined DNA testing

would not lead to an acquittal or lesser sentence. Id. In that appeal, the court

determined that the extra items Mr. Reynolds requested be tested in his successive

motion could have been included in his initial motion. Mr. Reynolds offered no reason

for why he was testing the items years later, but more importantly, the state court

denied his motion as procedurally barred because his motion simply sought to

relitigate claims the court conclusively determined were meritless.

What’s more, the record does not conclusively establish that the items contain

no remaining biological evidence. To the contrary, several items did indicate

biological material. And several items were not examined at all in 2003. As to the

remaining items, Mr. Duckett asserted, which the court was required to accept as

true, that new technology suited to detect a fraction of the amount of biological

material that was required for processing 23 years ago and designed to process

degraded samples will yield exonerative results from these items. Technology has

advanced beyond measure, and now preliminary screening can detect the presence of

DNA where earlier technology would not have. It is so sensitive that even packaging

that once held an item containing biological material can yield results.

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REASONS FOR GRANT THE STAY

An application for stay of execution is evaluated under the familiar four factor

test that analyzes:

(1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing

that he is likely to succeed on the merits;

(2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured

absent a stay;

(3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure

the other parties interested in the proceeding; and

(4) where the public interest lies.

Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009). For the reasons discussed below, a stay is

appropriate here.

A.

Mr. Duckett has shown a reasonable likelihood of success on the

merits of his claims.

The arbitrary hurdles erected by the Florida state courts to Mr. Duckett’s

access to Florida statutory procedures for obtaining DNA testing run afoul of the Due

Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as set forth in this Court’s precedents,

as summarized in the Question Presented in the Petition:

Whether the Florida Supreme Court’s imposition of

arbitrary procedural barriers, contrary to its own rules and

state statutes, violated Petitioner’s right under Florida law

to DNA testing that would demonstrate his innocence or

warrant a reduction of his sentence thereby depriving

Petitioner of due process and rendering illusory his statecreated right to prove his innocence through newly

discovered evidence.

The Question Presented in Mr. Duckett’s Petition is cert-worthy and he is

likely to prevail on the merits. This Court has recognized the critical importance of

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DNA in cases like Mr. Duckett’s: “DNA testing has an unparalleled ability to both

exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty.” Dist. Attorney’s Office for

Third Jud. Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52, 55 (2009). Likewise, as detailed in the

Petition, this Court has explicitly recognized that capital prisoners have a liberty

interest in obtaining DNA testing (see Gutierrez v. Saenz, 606 U.S. 305 (2025);

Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521 (2011); Osborne, 557 U.S. 52) and a property interest

in not being arbitrarily denied access to state-created investigatory procedures. See

Logan v. Zimmerman Brush, 455 U.S. 422 (1982).

A majority of this Court has agreed that capital defendants have a liberty

interest in obtaining DNA testing. See Gutierrez, 606 U.S. 305 (2025). More recently,

at least three members of this Court have expressed concern with procedural

obstacles to DNA testing when a prisoner faces imminent execution. See Reed v.

Goertz, 146 S. Ct. 936, 939 (2026) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting from the denial of

certiorari). This case is arguably even more straightforward than Gutierrez and Reed

because it is before this Court on a petition for certiorari from a state supreme court

rather than to a federal district court on a § 1983 action. As in Reed, it is “inexplicable”

why the State of Florida “refuses to allow DNA testing” of evidence that is directly

related to the underlying crimes “despite the very real substantial possibility that

such testing could exculpate” Mr. Duckett “and identify the real killer.” Id.

In light of these expressions of concern by several Justices, and to ensure that

the Court gives the Petition due consideration, Mr. Duckett also respectfully requests

that these papers be treated as a motion for expedited consideration of the Petition.

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See Eric M. Freedman, No Execution if Four Justices Object, 43 Hofstra L. Rev 639,

655 n. 67 (2015).

The denials of due process to Mr. Duckett ahead of his scheduled execution

are blatant and apparent. Under these circumstances, there is a reasonable likelihood

that four members of this Court would vote to grant certiorari.

B.

There can be no dispute that Mr. Duckett will suffer irreparable

harm absent a stay.

Mr. Duckett faces the ultimate deprivation. See Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S.

399, 411 (1986) (An “execution is the most irremediable and unfathomable of

penalties.”); see also Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 305 (1976). There can

be no dispute that Mr. Duckett will suffer irreparable harm unless this Court stays

his execution pending disposition of his Petition.

As this Court has recognized for years, “the penalty of death is different in kind

from any other punishment imposed under our system of criminal justice.” Gregg v.

Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 187 (1976). As a result, this Court has also established a need

for heightened reliability in death sentences. See Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S.

320, 340 (1985) (quoting Woodson, 472 U.S. at 305).

Unfortunately, our system gets it wrong sometimes. Richard Glossip had nine

death warrants and three final meals before being granted relief by this Court last

year. See generally Glossip v. Oklahoma, 604 U.S. 226 (2025) (remanding for vacatur

of conviction and new trial). After almost thirty years on death row and being just

hours from death several times, Mr. Glossip was released from prison on bail pending

retrial. Jim Vertuno, Former Oklahoma death row prisoner freed from jail as he

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awaits

retrial

in

1997

killing,

Associated

Press

(May

14,

2026),

https://apnews.com/article/oklahoma-richard-glossip-death-sentence-overturnedexecution-93cb95674a05161d219b2a54139d531f.

Mr. Duckett’s case has many similarities to Mr. Glossip’s. Both Mr. Duckett

and Mr. Glossip continuously maintained their innocence. See Glossip, 604 U.S. at

236. And in both cases, the reliability of the underlying convictions and death

sentences eroded after trial. Also in both cases, prosecutors failed to disclose evidence

about its main witness at trial (see id. at 237-28); here, the State failed to disclose for

decades that its primary witness, Gwen Gurley, was given a deal to get out of jail

early (PC-R1, D. Ech. 4, p. 19).

Mr. Duckett does not ask to be declared innocent. Nor does he ask to be

released from prison. All he asks is for this Court to stay his execution so that this

Court can review his meritorious claims, in which he seeks fair access to Florida’s

statutory procedures for testing available DNA evidence.

C.

The public interest lies in ensuring that the State does not end

a life without adequate due process.

It is a “fundamental legal principle that executing the innocent is inconsistent

with the Constitution.” Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 419 (1993) (O’Connor, J.,

concurring). It is equally unconstitutional to execute a person whose sentence is

unreliable.

When assessing the traditional equitable factors of the harm to the opposing

party and the public interest, “[t]hese factors merge when the Government is the

opposing party.” Nken, 556 U.S. at 435. Undoubtedly, the State of Florida has an

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interest in the enforcement of criminal judgments. Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573,

584 (2006). But Mr. Duckett seeks a stay of execution so that he can obtain potentially

exculpatory DNA testing which will take only weeks to complete. To proceed with an

execution without giving him that opportunity, guaranteed under state law, would be

contrary to the public interest. The State’s interest in executing Mr. Duckett is

premised upon the enforcement of the judgment and death sentence being lawful.

When, as here, a litigant demonstrates that the enforcement of such a judgment

would be unconstitutional, the public interest weighs in favor of the party whose

constitutional rights will be violated. United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 27 (1960)

(“[T]here is the highest public interest in the due observance of all the constitutional

guarantees . . . .”). And any harm to the State in delaying Mr. Duckett’s execution is

minimal. Hartman v. Bobby, 319 F. App’x 370, 371-72 (6th Cir. 2009).

The public has a strong interest in ensuring that the State does not end a life

without adequate due process—as it seeks to do here by denying Mr. Duckett

adequate access to statutory procedures that could ultimately demonstrate his

innocence.

D.

Mr. Duckett has not delayed in bringing his claim.

Finally, Mr. Duckett’s litigation timeline was dictated not by dilatory conduct

on his part, but by the State’s actions and the court’s improper handling of his

proceedings. Mr. Duckett only sought testing of the items at issue after the State,

which was “permitted to exercise complete control over the location, timing, and

method of the testing” of slide Q6(3), Duckett, 431 So. 3d at 992, destroyed the best

evidence in the case when it deliberately choose a technology not meant for the type

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of analysis the evidence required and not likely to produce a definitive result, in

violation of the Rule. Because the parties agree that identity is an issue here and

agreed testing should occur, promptly following the conclusion of his litigation

concerning the initial testing, Mr. Duckett moved for the additional testing at issue

in this case.

It likewise cannot go unmentioned that at the outset of his warrant

proceedings, Mr. Duckett outlined the precise testing method that was necessary in

this case, SNP testing using WGS. Mr. Duckett further alerted the court that he had

already contacted the leading lab in SNP and confirmed the lab was available to

conduct the testing right away and within the warrant period. Because the State

objected and insisted that FDLE conduct the testing, the proceedings were delayed.

Ultimately, seven days later, FDLE agreed that SNP was necessary and that FDLE

does not offer SNP. The testing was again delayed as the State would not agree that

the leading lab in SNP should do the testing. Because of the State’s insistence that

they alone determine the where, when, and how of the testing, the testing did not

begin until Monday March 16, 11 days after Mr. Duckett requested.

After results were returned that FDLE opined required further analysis of the

data, again, the State objected and delayed the proceedings. The circuit court agreed

with the state and denied further analysis. Mr. Duckett appealed to the Florida

Supreme Court. The state court reversed the circuit court and remanded “for the

underlying testing data to be provided for a statistical analysis, as directed by the

Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).” Duckett v. State, 431 So. at 992.

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Once it became clear that no probative results could be obtained from the

initial DNA testing, Mr. Duckett sought testing of the remaining similar nature items

of evidence in his case. Notably, at the time, no execution date was set.

The DNA Motion could not be filed for the purpose of delay where the requested

relief was made with no active execution date scheduled and the date was only set

after Mr. Duckett filed his request for testing. Any delay cannot be held against Mr.

Duckett.

CONCLUSION

Accordingly, Mr. Duckett respectfully requests that the Court grant this

Application, stay his execution, expedite consideration of his Petition, and grant any

other relief that the Court may find just.

Respectfully submitted this the 25th day of July 2026.

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Mary E. Wells

MARY E. WELLS

Law Office of M.E. Wells LLC

623 Grant Street SE

Atlanta, Georgia 30312

Tel. (404) 408-2180

*Counsel of Record

BRITTNEY LACY

Assistant CCRC-South

lacyb@ccsr.state.fl.us

Capital Collateral Regional

Counsel – South

110 SE 6th Street, Suite 701

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

Tel. (954) 713-1284

Fax (954) 713-1299

COURTNEY M. HAMMER

Assistant CCRC-South

hammerc@ccsr.state.fl.us

COUNSEL FOR PETITIONER

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