STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of beating and choking his brother's 13-year-old stepdaughter to death nearly 50 years ago is set to be executed Thursday evening.
James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. Hitchcock was initially sentenced to death in 1977 after being convicted of first-degree murder in the July 31, 1976, killing of Cynthia Driggers.
Then came years of appeals: Hitchcock's lawyers argued that the trial judge had barred consideration of mitigating evidence, that they weren’t allowed to keep three people off the jury and that he was falsely portrayed as a pedophile. He was resentenced to death in 1988, 1993 and 1996. After that, no governor signed his death warrant until Gov. Ron DeSantis sought to empty Florida’s Death Row.
Hitchcock woke up about 4:45 a.m. and has been compliant all day, a prison spokesman said during a news conference Thursday afternoon. Hitchcock met with a cousin but no spiritual adviser. He had a meal of chicken, salad, ice cream, pie and soda.
This would be Florida’s sixth execution so far this year. Four of the other five received their death sentences in the 1990s. DeSantis also oversaw a record 19 executions in 2025, more than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record had been eight executions, in 2014.
Five decades is an outlier — it generally takes at least 20 years, but usually closer to 30, from sentencing to execution. How much it cost Florida taxpayers to enforce Hitchcock's capital punishment over the years would be difficult to calculate, but it's far more expensive than a sentence of life without parole.
“It requires a higher degree of scrutiny, more careful legal proceedings, and expert attorneys and investigators,” Grace Hanna, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in an email Thursday. “There’s a misconception that the death penalty saves money by closing cases. In reality, it extends them -- often for decades -- while draining public resources at every stage.”
According to court records, Hitchcock was unemployed and had moved into his brother's Orlando home several weeks before the killing. He told police following his arrest that after several hours of drinking beer and smoking marijuana with friends, he returned to the home, entered the 13-year-old girl's room and raped her, investigators said.
When the girl told Hitchcock, then 20, that she had been injured and planned to tell her mother, Hitchcock tried to stop her from leaving the room and began choking her, officials said. Hitchcock then took the girl outside, where he beat and choked her until she stopped moving, and left her in some nearby bushes. Hitchcock then took a shower and went to bed.
Hitchcock recanted during his trial, and blamed his brother instead. He testified that his brother had walked into the girl's room shortly after they had consensual sex, and that his brother beat and choked her in a fit of rage. He said she was already dead by the time he pulled his brother off the girl, and that he had initially taken the blame to protect his brother.
The Florida Supreme Court denied another appeal last week. His attorneys had argued that he was innocent and that the state had illegally refused to grant him access to public records related to the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court denied another appeal on Thursday morning.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025, with Florida leading the way. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each.
Also Thursday evening, a man who claimed he was not the shooter in a fatal robbery that killed two people nearly 18 years ago — and who says prosecutors misused rap lyrics he wrote to secure his death sentence — faced execution in Texas.
Another Florida execution is planned for May 21. Richard Knight, 47, is scheduled to received a lethal injection for his conviction in the fatal stabbing of his cousin's girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter.
All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection, using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
