Arthur Frederick Goode III was convicted of killing two boys in separate events in 1976. Jason Verdow, 9, died in Cape Coral, Florida, on March 5. Kenneth Dawson, 11, died in Falls Church, Virginia, after Goode had traveled to Maryland. Virginia convicted him of the Virginia murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. In Florida a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in Jason's death, and in March 1977 a circuit judge sentenced him to death.
The Florida sentence took seven years to carry out. The case went through the Florida Supreme Court, a federal district court and the Eleventh Circuit, and reached the U.S. Supreme Court three times. An Eleventh Circuit panel once set the death sentence aside, and the Supreme Court restored it in 1983. Goode did not deny the killing in Florida. He chose to represent himself with appointed counsel standing by, told the court what he had done, and said at sentencing that he felt no remorse. The legal fight that followed centered instead on his mental condition, on a remark the sentencing judge made from the bench, and, in the last weeks, on whether he was sane enough to be executed. He was executed at Florida State Prison on April 5, 1984.
Goode came from Maryland. He was 22 at the time of the Florida sentencing and 30 at the time of his execution. His date and place of birth, his schooling and his family life before 1976 are not on record. His father appears in the case only at the end, as his next friend, filing for him in the last days before the execution.
A history of mental illness runs through the case. Before March 1976 he had been a patient at a mental hospital in Maryland and had left it. Four psychiatrists later examined him for the Florida court, and all four agreed that he had a mental disorder. They differed on whether it made him unfit to stand trial.
Jason Steele Verdow was nine years old (also given as ten) when he was killed in Cape Coral on March 5, 1976. He was the youngest of three boys. His mother remembers him as athletic and friendly, with a sense of humor, and as a child who spent nearly every day at the Little League ballfield. He played on a Cape Coral major league team, mostly as a left-handed pitcher and catcher, with some time at first base. His coach has kept a lineup card from those seasons. A teacher once handed the coach a paper Jason wrote in about the second grade, in which he said he wanted to be a baseball player.
Cape Coral was then a small town, and its police force was about five years old. The city's police chief, Anthony Sizemore, said in 2026 that the case should have shattered the community's sense of security.
After the Florida killing Goode went to Maryland. A boy, Kenneth Dawson, 11, was later killed in Falls Church, Virginia. Virginia convicted Goode of that murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment; the conviction came before the Florida Supreme Court's review in 1978. The court that tried him, the date of the verdict and the wording of the charge are not on record.
After the Virginia case Goode was returned to Florida for trial. The case, State of Florida v. Goode, carried the number 76-671, and Circuit Judge John Shearer presided. On January 13, 1977, three court-appointed psychiatrists found him competent to stand trial. A fourth, Dr. Barnard, concluded that he was not. The trial court held a full hearing and found him competent.
Goode then dismissed the lawyer he had retained and asked to represent himself. The judge questioned him closely, and the court found that he knowingly and intelligently gave up his right to counsel, under the rule of Faretta v. California. Two public defenders stayed on as standby counsel. In practice the trial ran in a largely traditional way, with counsel handling most of it, but Goode kept the right to approve trial decisions, cross-examined witnesses and gave a short closing argument. The trial took place in March 1977. He pleaded not guilty, but he testified in detail about the killing, so the question of who had killed Jason was never in dispute.
A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder. At the sentencing stage Goode testified that he felt no remorse. One lawyer on his side, Smith, urged the jury to recommend a life sentence so that Goode could be studied scientifically. The jury recommended death, a recommendation that under Florida law is advisory. Judge Shearer found three statutory aggravating circumstances proved beyond a reasonable doubt and two mitigating circumstances, one of them Goode's youth, and concluded that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating ones. On March 22, 1977, he sentenced Goode to death. In his closing remarks the judge told him, "may God have mercy on your soul." Other remarks from the bench would be argued over for the next seven years.
Goode told the Florida Supreme Court that he wanted his appeal dismissed. The court refused, because Florida law required it to review every death sentence. On September 7, 1978, in an opinion by Justice Adkins, with five other justices concurring, it found no reversible error, held that death was the proper sentence and affirmed the judgment and sentence. Rehearing was denied on January 15, 1979, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied review later that year.
In 1981 a motion to vacate the sentence, which argued that the judge had relied on a prohibited factor, was denied, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed on the ground that the point should have been raised on direct appeal. On February 5, 1982, Governor Bob Graham signed a death warrant setting the execution for March 2, 1982. On February 23 the Florida Supreme Court dismissed a habeas petition that alleged ineffective appellate counsel and denied a stay of execution. It read the judge's closing remarks as a response to the defense lawyer's plea for a life sentence, not as reliance on a barred factor.
The federal district court dismissed Goode's habeas petition, but it granted a certificate of probable cause. On February 28, 1982, the Eleventh Circuit granted a stay of execution, citing a substantial question about whether the Florida Supreme Court had violated due process by considering information about Goode that was not in the trial record.
On May 2, 1983, an Eleventh Circuit panel of Chief Judge Godbold, Judge Anderson and District Judge Hoffman rejected seven of Goode's eight claims, among them his competence to stand trial and to waive counsel, the waiver itself and the conduct of the trial. It accepted the eighth: that the trial judge had relied on a factor outside the statute, the likelihood that Goode would kill again. The panel held that this made the sentence arbitrary under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and ordered a writ conditioned on resentencing.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed on November 28, 1983, in Wainwright v. Goode. It held that the Eleventh Circuit had been wrong to overturn the Florida Supreme Court's reading of the sentencing record and of Florida law, and that even an error of state law would not by itself amount to a federal violation. Justices Brennan and Marshall dissented, repeating their view that the death penalty is always cruel and unusual punishment. On remand the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment on January 27, 1984.
On February 15, 1984, under Executive Order No. 84-37, Governor Graham had three psychiatrists examine Goode. They advised that he understood the nature of the death penalty and why it was being imposed. On March 6, 1984, the governor signed a second death warrant, setting the execution for April 5, eight years and one day after Jason's death. Asked to intervene, he declined.
Goode's final filings claimed that he was presently insane and that the Florida statute governing the sanity review, section 922.07, denied him procedural due process. On March 30 a petition went to the Florida Supreme Court, which on April 2 dismissed it and denied a stay. The court agreed that an insane person cannot be executed but found no abuse of authority and no denial of due process in the governor's handling of the review. On April 3 his father, as next friend, filed in federal court. The district court denied the petition without a hearing on April 4. The same day the Eleventh Circuit, in a per curiam opinion by Chief Judge Godbold and Judges Roney and Tjoflat, held that the statute met the minimum standards of due process. It assumed that a right not to be executed while insane might exist but held that Goode was barred from raising it, because he had not done so in his appeal, his state challenge to the sentence or his first federal petition, including when the first warrant was signed in 1982. It denied a certificate of probable cause and a stay. Later on April 4 the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay and review, with Justices Brennan and Marshall dissenting and Justice Rehnquist taking no part.
Goode was executed at Florida State Prison on April 5, 1984. He was the fourth person put to death in Florida since 1976. Louisiana had executed Elmo Patrick Sonnier less than six hours earlier, and the two were the first men put to death on the same day since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976. They brought the national total since 1976 to 18.
Florida newspapers published editorials, columns and letters about the case in 1982 and 1984, debating whether he was sane enough to be executed, whether capital punishment deters crime and what his case said about society. A collection of that commentary is held in the special collections of the University at Albany.
In Cape Coral the baseball field where Jason played is now Jason Verdow Memorial Park, with a large sign bearing his name and a plaque with his photograph. Each Little League season opens with a first pitch, and in 2026, the fiftieth year since his death, his great-nephew threw it. His coach, who coached him on two teams, still visits the park, and his coach's grandson plays there now. His mother and brother have spoken publicly about him.
Proven by verdict: the first-degree murder of Jason Verdow (Florida jury verdict, death sentence of March 22, 1977, affirmed by the Florida Supreme Court in 1978) and the murder of Kenneth Dawson (Virginia conviction, life imprisonment). No other killing was charged against him.
Jason's age is also given as ten. The Virginia court, the date of that verdict and the date of Kenneth's death are not on record. The death sentence was passed on March 22, 1977, and the execution carried out on April 5, 1984; seven years lay between them.
March 5, 1976: Jason Verdow, 9, dies in Cape Coral, Florida.
1976: after going to Maryland, Goode is linked to the death of Kenneth Dawson, 11, in Falls Church, Virginia; Virginia convicts him of the murder and sentences him to life imprisonment.
January 13, 1977: three court-appointed psychiatrists find him competent to stand trial.
March 1977: Florida trial; jury verdict of guilty of first-degree murder and a recommendation of death.
March 22, 1977: Judge John Shearer sentences him to death.
September 7, 1978: Florida Supreme Court affirms; rehearing denied January 15, 1979.
1979: U.S. Supreme Court denies review.
1981: motion to vacate denied; affirmed by the Florida Supreme Court.
February 5, 1982: Governor Graham signs a death warrant for March 2.
February 23, 1982: Florida Supreme Court dismisses a habeas petition and denies a stay.
February 28, 1982: Eleventh Circuit grants a stay of execution.
May 2, 1983: Eleventh Circuit panel orders a writ conditioned on resentencing.
November 28, 1983: U.S. Supreme Court reverses (Wainwright v. Goode).
January 27, 1984: Eleventh Circuit affirms the district court on remand.
February 15, 1984: three psychiatrists examine him at the governor's direction.
March 6, 1984: second death warrant, for April 5.
April 2, 1984: Florida Supreme Court dismisses his final habeas petition.
April 4, 1984: district court, Eleventh Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court deny relief.
April 5, 1984: executed at Florida State Prison.
2026: Cape Coral marks fifty years since Jason Verdow's death.