Jerry White

Jerry White (February 12, 1948 – December 4, 1995) was executed by electric chair by the state of Florida in 1995 for the murder of James Melson, a shopper in a grocery store that White robbed in Orange County in 1981. White's execution was noteworthy due to witnesses reporting that White had an unusual reaction to the electricity. Later two separate death row inmates, Phillip Atkins and Thomas Harrison Provenzano, attempted to use White's execution as evidence that Florida's electric chair was malfunctioning and subjected death row inmates to cruel and unusual punishment.

Early life Jerry White was born on February 12, 1948, in Quincy, Florida. White grew up in an environment of poverty and instability. He never met his biological father, and his stepfather, a sharecropper, was murdered when White was a child. White's mother, Mabel Pinkins, worked as a maid and was rarely home during White's childhood. When he was 14, he was arrested for the first time for burglary of a store in Orlando. He was sentenced to serve one year in a reform school in Marianna, Florida, where he reported being beaten. Following his release, White's mother noted that his personality suddenly changed and that he seemed "quiet and withdrawn for a long, long time." He began drinking alcohol when he was 15. White subsequently dropped out of school and developed an addiction to heroin.

Prior to the crime for which he was executed, White accumulated a long history of arrests for crimes including attempted murder, robbery, larceny, and burglary. In 1977, White was convicted of three counts of robbery and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released from prison in March 1980, a year prior to the robbery of the Alexander Grocery Store. Overall, prior to 1981, White had accumulated nine felony convictions.

Also prior to the murder, White was engaged to marry a woman . After White shot Alexander and Melson, two unsuspecting customers, a man and his 12-year-old daughter, entered the store. White attempted to force the customers into a freezer and, when they refused, then attempted to shoot them both at point-blank range. However, the gun misfired. Afterwards, White departed the store on foot, while the man and his daughter left the store in their car and reported the shootings to a nearby police officer. During the robbery, White robbed the store of $388 (equivalent to $ today).

Orange County deputy sheriffs found Jerry White lying on his side in a wooded area with cash in his pockets less than an hour after the shootings.

Trial Jerry White's trial began on April 21, 1982. White, who was African American, had an all-white jury after all prospective black jurors were removed from the jury pool.

The jury deliberated for 40 minutes before convicting White of first-degree murder and armed robbery. With an 11–1 vote,

In late October 1985, White was given a new attorney, Dewey Villareal. In a petition for White to receive a new trial, Villareal accused White's former attorney Moran of providing inadequate counsel to White due to Moran's personal issues with alcoholism and cocaine addiction. Some trial attendees, including White's aunt Ella Carruthers and White's ex-fiancée Forster, claimed to have smelled alcohol on Moran's breath during the trial; the jury also laughed at Moran's mannerisms several times throughout the trial, and Moran's closing statement was allegedly "incoherent, convoluted, and illogical." The trial judge also criticized Moran for his lack of preparation for the sentencing phase of White's trial. A judge ultimately determined in a 1986 hearing that Moran had done a satisfactory job defending White and rejected the petition for a new trial.

Execution Then-governor Lawton Chiles signed a third and final death warrant scheduling White's execution to take place on December 4, 1995, at 12:05 p.m. Three hours prior to the scheduled execution, White received a last meal consisting of grilled round steak, French fried potatoes, coleslaw, toast, and orange juice.

Aftermath Following White's execution, another Florida death row inmate, Phillip Atkins, argued based on witness reports of White screaming during the flow of electricity that Florida's electric chair was malfunctioning and would subject him to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. Atkins was scheduled to be executed one hour later on the same day as White, but his argument earned him a delay, albeit an ultimately unsuccessful one. Atkins was executed in the electric chair the next day 22 hours later, at 10:00 a.m.

In 1999, the state of Florida heard a petition from Thomas Harrison Provenzano, another death row inmate, who argued that the electric chair was a cruel and unusual punishment. Provenzano used witness reports of six executions by electrocution in Florida, including the botched executions of Jerry White, Pedro Medina, and Allen Lee Davis, in his argument. During the proceedings, Michael Minerva, who had witnessed White's death, said that "White's body stiffened and was thrust upward and backward to the back of the electric chair" after the current had been switched on to the chair. He also said that he heard what sounded like "air moving through the lips, the throat, that kind of sound" from White's body, though he could not tell whether the air "was coming in or going out." Although Provenzano ultimately lost his petition, Florida began offering death row inmates the choice of lethal injection since the 2000 execution of Terry Melvin Sims. Provenzano was executed by lethal injection later in 2000.