STARKE, Fla. — Tonight, We the People of the State of Florida executed James “Erny” Hitchcock for a crime he did not commit — the 1976 murder of Cynthia Driggers. We removed a 70 year old man from his wheelchair, strapped him to a gurney, and killed him.
There are not adequate words to describe the tragedy of Cynthia Driggers’ death and the pain felt by her family in the nearly fifty years since her murder. We grieve for them and what they experienced. But executing an innocent man has now created another irreversible tragedy — one entirely of the state’s choosing.
For decades, Erny maintained that his brother Richard killed Cynthia. While he acknowledged and took legal responsibility for unlawful sexual contact that night, he consistently denied any role in her murder. Erny was not alone in his insistence of innocence. In 1996, multiple witnesses came forward, confirming that Richard got away with murder. And yet, not a single one of Erny’s jurors ever heard this compelling evidence that Richard was responsible.
Many of these witnesses explained the reason they stayed silent for years was because they were terrified of Richard, who died less than two years before Erny’s fourth and final sentencing. Only after his death did these multiple witnesses finally feel safe enough to come forward. And even then, it was not too late. Erny had one final sentencing proceeding and one last opportunity for the jury to hear the truth. They never did. The court refused to allow this testimony. Had Erny’s 1996 jury heard this critical evidence, it would have swayed additional jurors to vote for life. Even without it, two jurors wanted Erny to live.
The excluded testimony was specific and convincing: One witness testified that Richard admitted: “I murdered that girl in Florida and blamed it on my brother Erny.” Another testified Richard explicitly said Erny “didn’t do that murder.” Multiple women described Richard’s long history of violence against women and girls — including sexual abuse, strangulation, and threats. One witness testified Richard choked her approximately twenty times. Another said he warned her that “the same thing would happen to me that happened to Cindy.”
In his time on death row, Erny could have chosen to be angry and embittered by what had happened to him. Instead, he became a valued member of the community on death row. Upon arriving, he got to work earning his high school diploma — an accomplishment only achieved because of his own advocacy to a warden who had long maintained that death row inmates could not participate in rehabilitative programming. He also helped others, teaching multiple men to read and write, and regularly buying coffee and essential supplies for new arrivals.
While growing up on death row, Erny made an impact on the numerous attorneys and investigators who represented him over the years. They believed in his innocence and they fought for his humanity. Tonight, the attorney who won him his very first resentencing in 1987 gathered a group of friends and colleagues to hold a vigil in south Florida. Another former attorney exchanged cards with Erny for years. In the final days of his life, Erny asked his family members to find her and ensure that she knew how special it felt for him to know someone cared about him.
Erny Hitchcock’s execution this evening took place just hours after his neighbor on death watch, James Duckett, learned that he was entitled to a complete evaluation of his DNA results before his execution. The contrast is as stark as it is heartbreaking.
This is the reality of Florida’s death penalty: it is capable of recognizing uncertainty — and carries out executions anyway.
One man gets a chance for the truth to come out, while another is silenced forever. This is the very definition of arbitrary and unfair. Florida’s death penalty is irretrievably broken.
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