US: In over three years, Florida executes first prisoner for murder at a shopping mall in 1990

For the first time in over three years, Florida has executed a prisoner this year, a US man convicted of a 1990 stabbing murder case.Donald Dillbeck was executed via lethal injection on Thursday evening, the Florida Department of Corrections said in a statement, AFP reported.

Dillbeck wasin jail for the last 32 years on death row for murdering a woman by stabbing her during a carjacking attempt in a Tallahassee mall parking lot in 1990after escaping from the prison as he had killeda police officer when he was only 15, the local media reported.

The US Supreme Court rejected his attorney's last-minute plea for a stay on Wednesday.

The execution was attended by the children of Faye Lam Vann, the woman killed by Dillbeck, and they thanked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for approving the sentence. He signed off on Dillbeck's execution the same dayas he proposed making capital punishment easier in his state by lowering the number of jury votes necessary to approve such a sentence, the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported.

During the final hearing, Dillbeck said, "I know I hurt people when I was young. I really messed up." He used his words to hit out DeSantis who is a potential 2024 presidential candidate. "But I know Ron DeSantis has done a lot worse. He's taken a lot from a lot of people."

Dillbeck till now is the seventh person to be executed in the United States so far this year, and the 100th person in Florida state since 1976 when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

(With inputs from agencies)

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