JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville man is set to be executed Tuesday, but his time at an infamous state-run reform school as a child has some calling for mercy.
Michael Bell was convicted of the 1993 murders of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith.
Bell claimed he believed the car the couple was driving in belonged to the man who killed his brother earlier that year.
Bell was subsequently convicted of three additional murders, including the killing of a mother and her toddler in 1989 and his mother’s boyfriend four months before the murders of West and Smith.
Bell’s execution has garnered special attention due to the fact he was sent to the infamous Dozier School for Boys when he was 15 years old.
Bell, like many of those sent to Dozier, claims to have been beaten during his time at the state-run reform school.
“The State of Florida put him there. I mean, they put him in that space where he committed this crime and now they’re going to take his life,” said Maria DeLiberato, Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
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New reporting from the Marshall Project found Bell’s case is not unique.
The nonprofit identified at least 50 people who attended Dozier and Okeechobee, a similar state-run reform school, who ended up on death row.
In total, the Marshall Project found people who were sent to Dozier and Okeechobee have been held responsible for the death of 114 people.
“This trauma profoundly impacts people, and if it’s untreated and not addressed, it is not surprising that it leads to criminality,” said DeLiberato.
The State of Florida formally apologized for the atrocities at Dozier and Okeechobee in 2017.
Last year, lawmakers approved $20 million for victims of the schools and just last week, $21,000 checks began hitting survivors’ mailboxes.
“They authorized compensation for the trauma that those men suffered, and at the same token, we’re about to execute one discounting the fact that untreated trauma had on their ability to be a productive and law-abiding citizen of the rest of their life,” said DeLiberato.
Bell was not eligible for compensation from the state.
He attended Dozier in the 80s, and only victims who were at the school between 1940 and 1975 were allowed to apply.
Bell is set to become the second person who attended Dozier to be executed just since last August, when convicted murderer and rapist Loran Cole was put to death.
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