Background
William Lee Thompson was sentenced to death for the 1976 first-degree murder of Sally Ivester. After his original sentence was vacated, he was resentenced to death in 1989, and that sentence became final in 1993. He later pursued numerous state and federal challenges, including claims that he was intellectually disabled and therefore constitutionally ineligible for execution.
After Florida’s governor signed Thompson’s death warrant in September 2026, Thompson filed a successive postconviction motion. He argued that he had been denied constitutionally adequate access to clemency because his prior clemency proceeding occurred before his 1989 resentencing, and that lethal injection would cause unconstitutional suffering given his serious medical conditions. The circuit court summarily denied both claims. Thompson appealed, petitioned for habeas corpus based on intellectual disability, and moved for a stay of execution.
The Court’s Holding
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the summary denial of postconviction relief. It held that Thompson’s clemency claim rested on the unsupported premise that due process required a new clemency proceeding tied specifically to his 1989 sentence. The record also showed that the governor considered and denied clemency in 2026. On the lethal-injection claim, the Court did not reach Thompson’s challenges to the first prong of the Baze-Glossip test because he failed to contest in his initial appellate brief the circuit court’s independent ruling that he had not established a feasible alternative method posing a significantly lower risk of severe pain.
The Court denied habeas relief, concluding that Thompson’s intellectual-disability claim impermissibly sought to relitigate the Court’s 2022 decision. Under Phillips v. State, Hall v. Florida does not apply retroactively to Thompson’s sentence, which became final in 1993, and his disagreement with the prior adjudication did not establish the kind of recent, exceptional development necessary to overcome the procedural bar through the manifest-injustice exception. Because the habeas petition was denied, the Court declared the habeas-based stay motion in SC2026-1466 moot.
Key Takeaways
- Minimal due-process protections for clemency did not entitle Thompson to a new proceeding specifically associated with his 1989 death sentence.
- Thompson’s failure to challenge an independently dispositive ruling on the alternative-method requirement in his initial brief required affirmance of the lethal-injection ruling.
- The Court treated the intellectual-disability habeas claim as a procedurally barred second appeal because Hall does not apply retroactively to Thompson’s final sentence and no recent, exceptional development justified reopening the issue.
- Justice Tanenbaum separately concurred, Justices Francis and Barrios concurred only in the result, and Justice Labarga concurred in affirming the postconviction denial but dissented from the denial of habeas relief.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces strict procedural limits governing warrant-stage capital litigation in Florida. A clemency challenge cannot rest merely on the absence of a new proceeding tied to a later sentence, and an appellant who leaves an independently sufficient ground for denial unchallenged in the initial brief cannot cure that omission in reply.
The ruling also confirms that Florida’s nonretroactivity rule for Hall continues to foreclose Hall-based intellectual-disability claims in cases that became final before Hall, absent circumstances sufficient to overcome procedural bars. The divided alignment shows continuing disagreement over that rule: Justice Labarga would have granted relief consistent with his earlier dissents concerning Hall’s retroactivity.