TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Florida Supreme Court is rejecting final appeals from the man who kidnapped, raped and murdered 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce on his way home from school almost 20 years ago.
Juan Carlos Chavez, 46, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Feb. 12 for the Sept. 11, 1995 murder in a rural area in Miami-Dade County.
Chavez tried to raise questions about Florida’s lethal injections procedures and was seeking public records to bolster his case.
The high court unanimously rejected the arguments and stated that many of them mirrored objections raised by another Death Row inmate.
The murder of Ryce horrified the state and led to the passage of the Jimmy Ryce Act, which allows authorities to commit dangerous sexual predators to mental institutions once they have completed their prison terms.
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