Starke, Fla. — A man who fatally shot a man and woman outside a Florida bar as part of an attempted revenge killing is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday. It would be the 26th execution in the U.S. this year, surpassing 25 nationwide in all of 2024 and the most since 25 in 2018, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Michael Bernard Bell, 54, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, barring a last-day reprieve. He was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death for the murders of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith.
Bell would be the eighth person put to death in Florida this year, with a ninth scheduled for later this month. The state executed six people in 2023, but carried out only one execution last year.
Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each. Alabama has executed three people, Oklahoma two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee have carried out one each.
In December 1993, Bell spotted what he thought was the car of the man who fatally shot his brother earlier that year, according to court records. Bell was apparently unaware that the man had sold the car to West.
Bell called on two friends and armed himself with an AK-47 rifle, authorities said. They found the car parked outside a liquor lounge and waited. When West, Smith and another woman eventually exited the club, Bell approached the car and opened fire, officials said.
West died at the scene and Smith died on the way to the hospital. The other woman escaped injury. Witnesses said Bell also fired at a crowd of onlookers before fleeing the area. He was arrested the following year.
Bell was later convicted of three additional murders. He fatally shot a woman and her toddler son in 1989 and he killed his mother’s boyfriend about four months before the attack on West and Smith, officials said.
Attorneys for Bell filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawyers argued in their state filing that Bell’s execution should be halted because of newly discovered evidence about witness testimony. But justices unanimously rejected the argument last week and pointed to overwhelming evidence of Bell’s guilt, in a 54-page opinion.
Bell’s attorneys filed a similar petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, but the panel hasn’t issued a ruling yet.