From Survivor to Target: Florida’s Hypocrisy in the Case of Victor Jones

The Abuse Jones Endured

• He was beaten with leather straps, called racist slurs by guards, and forced to witness countless rapes.
• He fought off assaults to avoid being raped himself, which led to solitary confinement that left him suicidal and hearing voices.
• He described “pervasive fear and helplessness” that defined his daily life.

The State’s acknowledgment of this abuse is new and material evidence that jurors never heard. Yet in an unreasonably rushed process, the courts denied Jones the chance to present this evidence or to obtain critical public records about Okeechobee’s systemic violence. His lawyers were given just days to file complex motions, agencies refused to turn over records, and the courts rubber-stamped denials without full hearings.

Today, Jones Faces Execution Despite:

• A history of intellectual disability rejected under legal standards later struck down as unconstitutional.
• A State letter formally recognizing him as a victim of crimes committed by Florida officials.
• A rushed, chaotic warrant process that denied him meaningful access to due process.

Executing Victor Jones would mean Florida is killing a man it has now admitted was itself a victim of horrific child abuse while in State custody. The same State that beat, raped, and traumatized children like Victor Jones — and then formally apologized and paid reparations — now seeks to kill him. This is not justice. It is hypocrisy.

A Powerful Coalition Warns: You Cannot Execute Survivors of State Torture

Florida has already acknowledged responsibility for the crimes committed against children at Okeechobee and Dozier. In 2024, the Legislature passed the Dozier and Okeechobee School Victim Compensation Program, apologizing for “a unique and shameful chapter in the history of this state” and granting $20 million to compensate survivors. Jones is part of the legislatively recognized class of victims. Yet, Florida now seeks to execute him.

This contradiction is so grave that a powerful coalition of organizations and leaders have filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Jones. The Amici Parties include:

• Troy Rafferty, Esq. (Rafferty Domnick Cunningham & Yaffa) — represented victims of the Schools in securing 2024 compensation legislation.
• Advancing Real Change, Inc. — trains and educates criminal defense practitioners on effective mitigation.
• Conservatives Concerned — a network of conservatives questioning the alignment of capital punishment with conservative values.
• Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers — statewide nonprofit of 1,000+ criminal defense practitioners.
• Florida Justice Institute — nonprofit public interest law firm advocating for Florida’s most disenfranchised.
• Florida Public Defenders Association — association of all 20 elected Public Defenders and nearly 2,000 employees statewide.
• Witness to Innocence — national nonprofit led by death row exonerees amplifying voices against the death penalty.

Their Core Argument

• Children were tortured by the State at Dozier and Okeechobee. They were beaten with leather straps, raped, starved, hogtied, locked in solitary, and even forced into fight clubs where guards placed bets on their pain. Dozens of children died, their bodies discarded in unmarked graves.
• Jones himself endured this abuse. He was beaten repeatedly, witnessed gang rapes, fought off sexual assaults, and was thrown into solitary confinement, leaving him with PTSD and suicidal ideation.
• Florida has executed survivors before. At least nine men who were confined at Dozier or Okeechobee have been executed, and dozens more sent there ended up on death row.
• Jones’ jury, like many others, was not told of the state-sanctioned abuse he endured. Florida courts at the time found “no mitigation,” even though the State now admits he was a victim of torture.

Finality Over Fairness: Florida’s Pursuit of Execution at Any Cost

The State of Florida’s response to Victor Tony Jones’ appeal is as revealing as it is disturbing. Despite overwhelming evidence, including Florida’s own acknowledgment, that Jones was brutally abused as a child in state custody, prosecutors insist that none of it matters.

In Their Brief, the State Argues That:

• The abuse doesn’t count as mitigation. The State admits that Jones is now recognized as a survivor of the Okeechobee School but dismisses this as irrelevant to whether he should live or die. In their telling, even torture by state officials has no bearing on whether someone deserves execution.
• The evidence is “too late.” Prosecutors argue that Jones should not be allowed to present evidence of his abuse because it wasn’t raised earlier, ignoring that Florida itself only formally acknowledged and compensated victims of the Schools in 2024 — decades after Jones’ trial.
• Jones’ intellectual disability is not enough. The State maintains that the courts were correct to dismiss Jones’ history of intellectual disability, relying on standards the U.S. Supreme Court has since ruled unconstitutional.
• Finality over fairness. Again and again, the State leans on “procedural bars,” insisting that process trumps truth — that the system’s need for closure outweighs the risk of executing a man whose life was permanently shaped by state-sanctioned child abuse.

The absurdity of this position is stark: Florida passed legislation just last year apologizing for the horrors inflicted on boys at Dozier and Okeechobee, calling it “a unique and shameful chapter in the history of this state.” Jones is part of that legislatively recognized class of victims. The State has already paid him compensation for the crimes it committed against him as a child. And yet, in the same breath, the State insists it should be allowed to execute him.

Florida cannot have it both ways. It cannot admit that it tortured children, pay reparations to its victims, and then turn around and argue that those same victims deserve death. The State’s brief exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of this execution: it values procedural shortcuts and punishment over justice, humanity, or even its own words.

The State of Florida’s filing in opposition to Jones’ request for a stay of execution exposes just how determined Florida is to kill him — no matter the evidence of abuse, disability, or injustice.

In Its Response, the State Argues That:

• It’s too late. Florida insists Jones should not be allowed to present evidence of his childhood torture at Okeechobee because “he knew” about it all along. In other words, even though the State itself only admitted this abuse in 2024, Jones should have somehow proved it decades earlier.
• Abuse is irrelevant. The State dismisses Jones’ compensation from the Dozier/Okeechobee fund as meaningless, claiming it does not create “substantial grounds” to stop an execution, even though Florida passed legislation apologizing to survivors just last year.
• Finality matters more than fairness. The State repeatedly argues that “the time has come” to enforce Jones’ execution, prioritizing finality over truth or justice. They accuse Jones of filing “last-minute” appeals, despite the fact that the evidence at issue, Florida’s own acknowledgment of its abuse, only became available in January 2025.
• Victims’ rights outweigh Jones’. Prosecutors argue that granting a stay would violate the victims’ families’ right to a “prompt and final” resolution, framing Jones’ appeal as an unnecessary delay, even though what is at stake is executing a man Florida has already admitted it tortured as a child.

The State’s response is chilling in its bluntness: Florida acknowledges Jones is a recognized survivor of state-sanctioned child abuse, yet it still argues he should be executed. Their position reduces justice to a race against the clock, where procedure and “finality” matter more than humanity or fairness.

The Final Word: Justice Demands a Fair Hearing

Jones’ legal team has made clear that the State’s arguments rest on distortions and falsehoods. The January 6, 2025 letter from the Attorney General’s Office is not about Jones “remembering” his abuse — it is about the State of Florida officially recognizing him as a victim of a crime, apologizing for the abuse he suffered, and approving him for compensation. That recognition is new, material evidence that could have led a jury to impose life instead of death.

The Filings Expose Several Key Flaws in the State’s Position

• The claim is timely. The new evidence is the State’s own apology and compensation, something no one could have predicted even five years ago.
• The claim is not barred. The State’s attempt to twist Jones’ position ignores that his claim is about the State’s recognition — not simply his own testimony about abuse.
• The claim has merit. To be deemed eligible for the compensation program, Jones had to prove both confinement at Okeechobee and that he was abused there. The Attorney General’s Office knows this, because it administered the fund and placed Jones’ compensation directly into his DOC account. For the State to now argue otherwise is disingenuous.

The filings from Jones’ legal team also underscore the fundamental unfairness of Florida’s truncated warrant process, which denied Jones critical access to records — records the Attorney General’s Office itself controls. Instead, prosecutors used this lack of disclosure to advance arguments that are demonstrably false.

As Jones’ counsel argued, prosecutors are not ordinary adversaries: they are supposed to be servants of justice. Instead, the Attorney General struck “foul blows” by making claims disproved by its own files.

The filings make clear what is at stake: executing Victor Jones would mean killing a man whom Florida has already admitted it brutalized as a child — and then lied about in order to defend his execution. The courts now face a choice: either uphold justice by granting Jones a fair hearing, or allow the State to carry out an execution built on hypocrisy, concealment, and cruelty.