Kayle Bates(Muaď Dib Al'Shrieef Qu’un) is scheduled to be executed in Florida on August 19, 2025 for the 1983 murder of Janet White.

Join the Virtual Sit In

Call Gov. DeSantis at 850-717-9337 with the following message:

"Hi. My name is [your name]. I am calling to voice my opposition to Florida's plans to execute Kayle Bates on August 19th. Florida has already had more executions this year than in any of its years prior. Has public safety in Florida improved? No it has not. There is no legitimate reason to continue to utilize this archaic and haunting practice. Kayle Bates' case calls into question numerous issues, including; the role that race played in sentencing Kayle to death and conflicts of interest with expert witnesses and state prosecutors. Kayle's case is yet another clear example of the damage associated with military service. For a state that proclaims to support those who serve, it is deeply troubling that Kayle will be the 4th veteran executed this year. Thank you."

REGISTER FOR 8/19 VIRTUAL VIGIL BEGINNING AT 5PM ET.

Provided by collaborators at Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty:

Judge Turner presided over Mr. Bates’ trial and allowed a white minister from the victim’s First Baptist Church to pray over the all-white jury. Mr. Bates was sentenced to death in 1983 after a jury recommended death by 11-1. The Circuit Court found that Mr. Bates was denied effective assistance of penalty phase counsel and granted a new penalty phase. At the 1995 resentencing, the trial was supposed to begin on the same day as one of Mr. Bates’ attorney’s other clients were to be executed in Georgia. The trial court refused to grant a continuance but the Florida Supreme Court granted one – for 24 hours. Finally, on January 30, 1995, the resentencing went forward, but on the fourth day a juror disclosed to several other jurors that his ex-wife had been raped and that she never fully recovered from the trauma and that he did not disclose this information during voir dire. At his second resentencing, his jury believed he would be paroled in 12 years and walk free, even though Bates was already serving multiple life sentences that guaranteed he would never be released. Moreover, the state’s expert witness Dr. McClaren had been contributing to the campaigns of the state attorney who prosecuted Mr. Bates. The jury voted 9-3 to recommend death, which the Circuit Court imposed. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed his death sentence over three dissenting and two concurring opinions. Bates v. State, 750 So. 2d 6, 9 (Fla. 1999). Bates is now challenging his 1982 convictions of guilt and his 1995 sentence of death.

Eighteen character witnesses testified concerning Mr. Bates’ life history and good character. Their cumulative testimony covered Mr. Bates’ entire twenty-four years of life up to the time of the tragic crime. His military records were also entered into evidence. Notably, the Court only gave Bates’ national guard service little weight.

At the post conviction evidentiary hearing, Mr. Bates presented testimony of Mr. Gary Scott who had military training with Mr. Bates in the Florida National Guard and their unit’s activation to quell race riots in Liberty City near Miami in 1980. Mr. Bates’ ex-wife was interviewed for 3 hours by an investigator in June, 2005. She said that Mr. Bates’ behavior drastically changed after he served in the National Guard in Miami and Panama. He would wake his ex-wife up with his nightmares, screaming very loudly, acting “crazy”, and not recognizing where he was. He would break out in cold sweats. He did not speak in detail about serving in Miami, but he never wanted to go down there in the first place. Dr. Barry Crown testified at the 2006 evidentiary hearing that neuropsychological testing revealed Mr. Bates’ organic brain damage.

After his jungle training and service following the McDuffy incident, Mr. Bates was not the same. “Mr. Bates was trying his best but that was ultimately not enough.” On July 25, 2025, Dr. Oahu evaluated Mr. Bates and found that Mr. Bates has significant cognitive impairments, memory defects, and severely diminished memory functioning. Mr. Bates was sentenced to death without any consideration of his organic brain damage. Not because of a missed objection or failure to ask a question, but because of an “utter lack of consideration for a compelling form of mitigation that has long been used to find capital punishment inappropriate.”

We believe in accountability, but true accountability does not require execution. A sentence of life without the possibility of parole protects society while also recognizing the human capacity for redemption and the role of childhood trauma in shaping adult behavior.

Florida does not need the death penalty to be safe. This execution will not make us safer, it will simply add another act of violence to an already tragic story. Justice does not require death. Florida's continued use of executions marks the state as an outlier in its use of the death penalty. The majority of other states are on a downward trend of executions.

Please sign the petition asking Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida State Board of Executive Clemency to do everything within their power to stop this execution, including issuing a stay, and seeking a path to clemency in the case.