Michael Bell
Michael Bell, 54, was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Raiford on July 15, 2025, and was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. His lawyers argued that abuse he suffered as a boy at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys had damaged his brain and should have been weighed at sentencing, and his 73-year-old aunt, Paula Goins, told a hearing that he came back home damaged from that school. His attorneys also raised recanted witness testimony and claimed detectives had coerced testimony in his case, though a judge later ruled that the coercion claim had not been shown, and the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, declined to halt the execution. Bell described his childhood neighborhood in Jacksonville and spoke with reporters more than a dozen times from death row.
Cause of death, as reported: Executed by the state. His lawyers argued that abuse he suffered as a boy at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys had damaged his brain and should have been weighed at sentencing, and that witnesses had recanted testimony.
Reported by: Florida Department of Corrections (the agency that held him); his lawyers; Vocal.media roundup of 2025 U.S. executions (reporters).