STARKE, Fla. (AP) — Thomas Lee Gudinas, a 51-year-old man convicted of raping and murdering Michelle McGrath, is scheduled to be executed via lethal injection on Tuesday at Florida State Prison near Starke. This execution is pending and could be halted by a last-minute reprieve. Gudinas was found guilty for his involvement in the brutal crime that occurred in May 1994.
If the execution proceeds, Gudinas will become the seventh person executed in Florida this year. Additionally, an eighth execution is slated for next month. Florida's execution numbers show a notable rise, having executed six individuals in 2023 while only carrying out one execution in the previous year. In the larger context, a total of 23 men have faced execution across the United States in 2023, with forecasts indicating that 2025 may witness the highest number of executions since 2015.
Florida currently leads the nation in executions for the year, surpassing other states such as Texas and South Carolina, which are tied for second place with four executions each. Meanwhile, Alabama has executed three, Oklahoma two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, and Tennessee each one. Mississippi is also set to carry out its first execution since 2022, with a scheduled date on Wednesday.
Michelle McGrath was last observed at Barbarella's, a local bar, in the early hours of May 24, 1994. Several hours later, her body was discovered in an alley adjacent to a nearby school, showing signs of severe trauma and sexual assault. Gudinas had been present at the same bar the night prior to her disappearance but reportedly left separately from his friends. A school employee who discovered McGrath's body later identified Gudinas as someone fleeing the area moments before the discovery. Furthermore, a separate witness testified that Gudinas chased her to her car the previous evening, threatening to assault her.
In 1995, Gudinas was convicted and sentenced to death for his crimes. His legal team has since filed multiple appeals, seeking intervention from both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. The defense argues that Gudinas’s “lifelong mental illnesses” should exempt him from capital punishment. However, the Florida Supreme Court recently dismissed these appeals, clarifying that existing case law does not extend protections against execution to individuals with forms of mental illness or brain damage that do not qualify as intellectual disabilities.
Additionally, a federal appeal is challenging the discretion held by the Florida governor to sign death warrants, asserting that this practice infringes on the constitutional rights of death row inmates regarding due process, which has resulted in an arbitrary system for deciding who is executed. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to issue a ruling on this matter.
