Convicted murderers to be executed in Florida, Texas

Two men convicted of murder, including one who has spent more than 25 years on Death Row, are to be executed by lethal injection in the southern US states of Florida and Texas on Thursday.

James Ford, 64, was sentenced to death in Florida in 1999 for the 1997 murders of Greg Malnory, 25, and his wife, Kimberly, 26, two coworkers at a sod farm in the town of Punta Gorda.

Richard Tabler, 46, is scheduled to die for the 2004 murders of a strip club owner, Mohamed Amine Rahmouni, and another man, Haitham Zayed, in the city of Killeen, Texas.

Tabler also confessed to killing two teenage dancers at the club, aged 16 and 18, but was never tried for their deaths.

According to court documents, Ford, the Florida Death Row inmate, shot Greg Malnory in the head and slit his throat. His wife was raped, bludgeoned and shot.

Their bodies were discovered by an employee of the sod farm the next day.

The couple's 22-month-old daughter spent more than 18 hours strapped in a car seat in their pickup truck before being found. She was covered in mosquito bites and her mother's blood, according to court documents.

Ford was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, rape and child abuse.

Ford's attorneys have sought to halt his execution on the grounds that although he was 36 years old at the time of the murders he had the mental and developmental age of a 14-year-old.

A 2005 US Supreme Court decision barred the execution of persons who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes.

The Florida Supreme Court rejected Ford's argument last week and he has filed a last-ditch appeal with the US Supreme Court.

Tabler, the Texas inmate, has abandoned his appeals against the death sentence.

There have been three executions in the United States this year -- one in Alabama, one in South Carolina and one in Texas.

There were 25 executions in the country last year.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the country's 50 states, while three others -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have moratoriums in place.

Three states -- Arizona, Ohio and Tennessee -- that had paused executions have recently announced plans to resume them.

President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in the White House he called for an expansion of its use "for the vilest crimes."

© Agence France-Presse