Florida executes inmate who admitted to killing cellmate to get the death penalty

STARKE, Fla.— A Florida prisoner who said he killed his cellmate specifically to get on death row was executed Tuesday, nearly 18 years after the attack.James Robertson, 63, declined to offer any last words before receiving a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later.

It was a stark contrast to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee two weeks ago, where she was rushed to the hospital after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.Robertson’s execution, the first in Florida since Pike, comes at a time of escalating attention on the death penalty in the United States.The Pentagon said last week that it would livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, drawing criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.“Florida has a sound lethal injection process and protocol,” Jordan Kirkland, a state Department of Corrections spokesperson, said at a news conference before the execution.

Although he couldn’t speak to Tennessee’s lethal injection procedure, he said Florida would make sure its process was “humane and dignified.”Florida executes people by injecting them with a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.Robertson had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for strangling Frank Hart while he slept in 2008, and waived all appeals.He told investigators that he did it so he wouldn’t have to live out his days in prison.Hart was killed just eight days before he was due to be released, his daughter, Rebecca Hart, told reporters at Florida State Prison.

She stressed that her father was not just a piece of Robertson’s story.“When someone you love is taken from you in such a violent way, the world keeps moving, even when a part of yours feels like it has stopped,” she read.“Other people go on with their lives, but you carry your loss into every tomorrow.”Robertson was 17 years old when he went to prison in 1980...