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Statement on the Execution of Michael King
STARKE, Fla. — Tonight, on the Feast of St. Patrick, during the Lenten Season, We the People of the State of Florida, executed devout Catholic Michael King.
Michael was executed tonight for the 2008 murder of Denise Amber Lee, a devoted wife, loving mother, and valued member of her community. Her death devastated her family, shocked communities across the country, and also exposed serious failures in the emergency response system that allowed for five people, including Denise herself, to call 911 before help was coordinated and emergency vehicles were dispatched. We grieve for Denise and for everyone whose lives were forever changed by her death.
In the years since, Denise’s family has worked tirelessly to improve 911 training and accountability so that those failures are never repeated. That work, and her legacy, is where real justice lives.
Instead, the State of Florida chose more violence as its version of “justice.”
Michael’s single, albeit devastating, act of violence must be considered in the context of a traumatic and life-altering traumatic brain injury he experienced at six years old. His 11 year old brother was driving a snowmobile, pulling young Michael, who was in a sled, downhill behind him. They lost control. Michael slammed into a wooden pole head-on, and was immediately knocked unconscious. His brother carried his limp body as Michael bled from his head, nose and mouth. His teeth were broken and loose, his face mangled. He sustained damage to his developing frontal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for decision making and impulse control.
After the accident, Michael suffered chronic nosebleeds, fell behind in school, repeated grades, and suffered from hallucinations — seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. He believed people were out to get him and developed severe phobias. Michael’s family watched for decades as the boy they loved changed. They lost the child they once knew. When he was arrested, convicted, and condemned to die, they lost him again.
Michael has transformed while on death row. As many people with brain damage find, the predictability and structure of prison was helpful. Those who knew and loved Michael described him as sincere, devout, and steady in his Catholic faith. Faith that helped him regulate his life in ways that had never been possible after his childhood brain injury. He prayed with others and offered comfort to the other men facing the same isolation and despair that defines death row.
Michael’s time on death row demonstrates something the death penalty fails to reckon with: the human capacity for change and redemption. That people are defined by more than their single aberrant act.
Further, in a cruel twist of irony, Michael was born with double pneumonia, struggling to breathe. Tonight, Florida executed him using a lethal injection protocol that autopsy records show causes flash pulmonary edema — a death that mirrors drowning. Worse, because Florida uses a paralytic, his struggles to breathe would have been completely masked.
Michael asked for basic transparency about how the State planned to carry out his execution, The State refused. Incredibly the State did not dispute Michael’s claims that the heavily redacted drug logs do in fact demonstrate the State has used expired drugs and given inadequate doses. Instead, State officials give the repeated and robotic assertion that they are presumed to follow their protocol. 32 executions in, it is long past time to test that presumption with transparency.
What a different story this could have been, had this tragedy ended decades ago with a life without parole sentence. Denise Lee’s family could have continued the incredible work to honor her memory by fighting for reform to keep others safe. Importantly, they could have done so without the painful reminder of the single worst day in their lives as this case wound through the court system towards Michael’s eventual execution. Society would have remained safe, and Floridians would not have to question whether their government was torturing its citizens and calling it punishment.
Instead, tonight, a new family grieves. A mother lost her son, siblings lost their brother, and a child lost their father. More violence and loss is never real justice.
fadp.org/statement-on-t…
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