As the lethal drugs began to flow into his arm, David Pittman, a man convicted of a brutal triple murder and arson more than 30 years ago, maintained his innocence.
But the final, desperate legal battle for his life was not about guilt. It was about his mind.
The execution of David Pittman, the 12th in Florida’s record-setting year, has become a flashpoint in the nation’s agonizing debate over the death penalty. It raises a profound constitutional question: Can a procedural deadline override the Supreme Court’s absolute ban on executing the intellectually disabled?
At a Glance: A Controversial Execution
- What’s Happening: Florida has executed David Pittman, 63, for a 1990 triple murder, marking the state’s 12th execution this year, a modern record.
- The Final Appeal: Pittman’s lawyers argued his execution was unconstitutional because of his “well-documented and life-long history of intellectual disability.”
- The State’s Position: Florida courts ruled that this claim was procedurally barred because it was not raised at the proper time during his initial trial and appeals process decades ago.
- The Constitutional Issue: A major test of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments,” specifically the Supreme Court’s ban on executing the intellectually disabled (Atkins v. Virginia), versus a state’s power to enforce its procedural rules.
A Record Year in the Sunshine State
Pittman was put to death Wednesday for the 1990 slayings of his estranged wife’s parents, Clarence and Barbara Knowles, and her 21-year-old sister, Bonnie. Prosecutors said he stabbed the three to death, stole a car, and then set their house on fire to cover up the crime.
His execution marks a grim milestone for Florida. It is the 12th time the state has carried out the death penalty in 2025, the most in any year since capital punishment was restored in 1976. The state has executed more people this year than any other, with two more executions already scheduled before the end of October.
The Constitutional Firewall: The Eighth Amendment
The entire final act of this legal drama revolved around the Eighth Amendment’s protection against “cruel and unusual punishments.”
In a landmark 2002 case, Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing an intellectually disabled individual is unconstitutional. The Court reasoned that such individuals have a diminished capacity for understanding and processing information, which lessens their moral culpability and makes the ultimate penalty of death disproportionately cruel.
This ruling created a constitutional firewall, a clear line that the state is not supposed to cross. Pittman’s lawyers argued that his “well-documented” and lifelong intellectual disabilities placed him squarely behind that protective wall.
A Procedural Wall: The State’s Argument
The state of Florida and its courts did not seriously dispute the evidence of Pittman’s intellectual disability. Instead, their entire case rested on a powerful and, to critics, infuriating legal argument: a procedural technicality.
They argued that Pittman’s lawyers had failed to raise the intellectual disability claim at the “procedurally appropriate time” during his initial trial and appeals process in the 1990s. Because of this, the state courts ruled, the claim was “procedurally barred.” He had missed his window.
“We the People of the State of Florida killed David Pittman, an intellectually disabled man… Their purported reason for allowing this execution to proceed? Because the evidence regarding his intellectual disability wasn’t raised during the proper or procedurally appropriate time.” – Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
This created a wrenching legal conflict: a substantive constitutional right versus a rigid procedural rule.
A Question of Justice
The execution of David Pittman highlights one of the most difficult conflicts in our legal system – the tension between finality and fairness.
The state of Florida argues that for the justice system to function, there must be deadlines, rules, and a point at which a case is considered closed.
Opponents argue that when a fundamental constitutional right is at stake – like the Eighth Amendment’s absolute protection for the intellectually disabled – a procedural technicality should never be the reason a person is led to the execution chamber.
This case is a grim and powerful new chapter in America’s ongoing, and deeply unsettled, debate over the death penalty itself.