Death penalty in the US: Florida executes robber killer after 26 years in prison

At 21:48, Jose Antonio Jimenez was pronounced dead. The state of Florida has re-executed a convicted offender. With lethal injection, the authorities took the 55-year-old's life in Florida State Prison near the town of Strong.

Before his death, Jimenez renounced the last words, as the news agency Reuters reported, citing a prison spokesman. As a last meal he had a sandwich with turkey and ham, chips, ginger lemonade and ice cream.

Jimenez had been on death row for about 26 years for the murder of Phyllis Minas and had been waiting for his execution. He had stabbed the longtime law clerk during a break-in in October 1992. The 63-year-old was killed in her apartment in northern Miami when she surprised the burglar. He stabbed her eight times, then managed to flee across the balcony first.

In the US, 2018 people have executed 25 people so far

The Jimenez, now executed for the crime, is the 28th detainee Florida Governor Rick Scott has executed since his inauguration in 2011. The Republican politician seems to be bucking the trend, which has seen fewer and fewer executions in the United States in recent years.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a total of 25 people were executed in 2018 in the United States. It is the fourth year in a row that there have been less than 30 executions nationwide.

Executions since 1976

Since the resumption of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, the number of executions has risen to 98 in 1999. In 2016, they were at their lowest level at 20 - apparently because the toxic cocktails used for executions in the US are under criticism stand. Because the contained narcotic Midazolam should not be strong enough to suppress the pain of the dying death candidates. It was not until the beginning of December in the state of Tennessee, after years, that a convicted murderer had been executed on the electric chair.

Surveys also suggest that American support for the death penalty varies. Since peaking in the 1990s, the number of followers has fallen. A 2018 Gallup poll found that 56 percent of Americans supported the death penalty for a convicted person or murder.