Tonight, we the people of the State of Florida executed Mike Bell. We executed him despite serious doubts about the integrity of his conviction. We executed him despite torturing him as a teenager at the Dozier School for Boys. His state-sanctioned murder tonight sends the message that the State of Florida does not have to take accountability for the harm it inflicts on its children. It sends the message that prosecutors and law enforcement get to cheat to get a conviction so long as they believe the ends justify the means.
The truth is, we don’t know for certain if Mike Bell was guilty of the crimes for which we killed him. No physical evidence linked him to the shooting deaths of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith. The State’s main “eyewitness” to the murder, Henry Edwards, lied under oath at trial. In a sworn affidavit dated June 16, 2025, he recanted his testimony. He never actually saw the shooting, and he was inside the store when the shots were fired. Edwards admitted that law enforcement pressured him to testify falsely, promising him favors in return.
Another key witness, Charles Jones, also submitted a sworn affidavit stating that he had been coached by a detective and pressured to falsely testify. He described being repeatedly released from jail to visit his wife while in custody — an extraordinarily improper benefit granted in exchange for his cooperation.
At least six witnesses have come forward to say that they were told to testify falsely. Despite these and other explosive revelations, the evidentiary hearing conducted during the rushed warrant period was a whitewash. When the State threatened these men with perjury, the court sided with the State and refused to grant them immunity, preventing a full and fair assessment of their testimony. Additionally, the State hid evidence from Mike and his lawyers until just a few weeks ago — a witness to the shooting told police that the shooter was too tall to be Michael Bell and didn’t weigh enough. The State of Florida chose to execute Mike tonight knowing the recantations and this hidden evidence were never fully evaluated in court.
In many criminal courtrooms throughout the State of Florida there sits a plaque on the wall emblazoned with the words: “We who labor here seek only the truth.” And yet, Mike’s murder tonight declares that the State of Florida doesn’t actually care about learning the truth. That they purposely choose finality over fairness. Especially when the truth-seeking process threatens to throw a wrench in their now well-oiled machinery of death.
This is not just a legal failure. It is a moral disgrace. Because, in addition to the serious doubts as to the validity of his conviction and death sentence, Florida also executed the 15-year-old child who survived the Dozier School for Boys, a state-run torture chamber disguised as a reform school. Guards forced a teenaged Mike to fight much larger boys for their amusement, taking cash bets from other Dozier employees on whether he would win. They threw him face down on a cot in a squat building everyone called “the white house” and told him to grasp the headrail, while beating him with a leather strap until he bled. They shackled his arms and legs and left him in that position for hours.
Mike is far from alone in his torment at Dozier. At least 29 boys who survived the Dozier School ended up on Florida’s death row. The State buried their trauma alongside the bodies of those who didn’t make it out of the Dozier School alive and then used their brokenness to justify sending them to their state-sanctioned death.
These things are not minor technicalities — no one can be certain that we just executed the person who was responsible for taking the lives of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith. You can be certain that he did not receive a fair shake. And it is more than certain that he ended up in a place to be convicted of capital murder because the State of Florida broke him as a boy.
Jimmy West’s brother, Bimley West, as well as Jimmy’s son Jimmie West did not want Mike to be executed. When the people most harmed by this crime do not want more killing in their names, that speaks volumes. And it underscores the unavoidable truth that Florida’s death penalty is merely a weapon of power and politics.
In killing Mike, Florida buried not only the man, but the evidence, the accountability, and the possibility of redemption. Tonight, the State of Florida didn’t just kill Mike Bell. It killed any chance of true justice in this case.