Marshall Lee Gore was convicted of murdering two women he met within about six weeks of each other in the winter of 1988. Susan Roark was last seen alive with him in Cleveland, Tennessee, on January 30, 1988, and her remains were found in Columbia County, Florida, that April. Robyn Novick, 30, was last seen with him in south Dade County on March 11, 1988, and her body was found in a rural part of the county five days later. Two days after Novick disappeared, Gore attacked a third woman, who survived and testified against him. FBI agents arrested him in Paducah, Kentucky, on March 17, 1988, with her car.
Juries in two Florida counties sentenced him to death. The Florida Supreme Court threw out the first Novick verdict in 1998 because of the prosecutor's conduct at trial, and a second jury convicted him again. Gore spent 23 years on death row. In 2013, as his execution approached, his lawyers argued that he was too mentally ill to be put to death; a panel of psychiatrists and then the courts found that he was feigning. He was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on October 1, 2013.
Gore was born on August 17, 1963, according to the records of the Florida Commission on Capital Cases, a legislative office that tracked death penalty cases until it closed in 2011. At the penalty phase of the Roark trial his mother and an uncle testified that his father had been verbally and physically abusive, most of all toward Gore's mother, and that the father had set a poor example by openly taking part in criminal activity. A defense psychiatrist told the jury that Gore was a product of that upbringing and had an antisocial personality disorder, but he also said that Gore could conform his conduct to the law.
The judge who sentenced him in the Roark case described him as rational and of "above average intelligence." In rejecting his youth as a mitigating factor, the judge noted that Gore was streetwise, had completed two years of high school and was of average or better intelligence. At the later Novick retrial the judge accepted three minor mitigating points: that he had a hearing loss, that he suffered from migraine headaches, and that he had once stopped a family altercation.
By his mid-twenties he had a criminal record in Miami-Dade County. The commission's records list three cases that ended in probation: carrying a concealed firearm in September 1982, carrying a concealed firearm again in April 1984, and grand theft of property worth $300 or less in November 1985. When he was arrested in 1988 it was on a federal charge, described in a concurring opinion of the Florida Supreme Court as a federal parole violation.
The Florida Supreme Court's 1992 opinion in the Roark case sets out what happened on her last night. Gore was in Cleveland, Tennessee, waiting at a convenience store for a friend who was supposed to drive him to Florida, when he met Susan Roark and got into her black Mustang. She took him with her to a party at a friend's house, where she had planned to spend the night. Between about 11:30 p.m. and midnight she left to drive him home. She did not come back.
Her grandmother had expected her home by 7 a.m. When she did not arrive, the grandmother reported her missing the next day. Her stepmother later attended Gore's trial; the judge allowed her to stay in the courtroom while witnesses testified, a ruling the Supreme Court upheld because she was not a material witness.
On January 31, 1988, Gore arrived in Tampa driving a black Mustang. He persuaded a friend to help him pawn jewelry that was later identified as Susan Roark's. From Tampa he went on to Miami. Police there recovered her Mustang after it was abandoned following a two-car accident. Gore's fingerprint was found in the car, along with a traffic ticket that had been written to him in Miami.
On February 19, 1988, a woman who was riding in a car with Gore noticed a woman's purse on the back seat. She testified at his trial that Gore told her the purse belonged to a girl he had killed "last night." Asked how sure she was about the timing, she said he had said "last night or a few nights ago." The Supreme Court held that her account was admissible as an admission and that its timing, and whether the purse was Roark's, were questions for the jury.
Her remains were found in Columbia County, in north Florida, on April 2, 1988. The State's forensic pathologist concluded that she had been killed. The Commission on Capital Cases lists the date of the offense as January 31, 1988.
Robyn Novick was 30 years old. On the night she was last seen, March 11, 1988, a witness watched her leave a tavern parking lot in south Dade County in her yellow Corvette, with a man the witness identified as Gore.
Early on March 12, Gore was seen driving the Corvette. He told a friend that his girlfriend had lent him the car and that the friend should call him "Robyn." He later wrecked the Corvette, and the friend testified that Gore told him to "run" because the car was stolen. Police who recovered the wreck found Novick's credit cards, her driver's license and her cigarette case inside, along with a power of attorney that Gore had signed.
She was found dead in Dade County on March 16, 1988. The medical examiner gave the causes of death as stabbing and strangulation. The commission's records give the date of the offense as March 10, 1988, a day earlier than the date the Supreme Court gives for the last sighting.
On March 14, 1988, two days after Novick was last seen, Gore attacked a woman in Dade County. She survived. Gore was convicted in that case, Dade County case number 88-9827, of kidnapping, sexual battery, attempted murder and related offenses. The Associated Press reported that the sentences in that case totaled seven life terms plus 110 years.
Gore took her car, a red Toyota. Her young son was in it. Before trial in the Novick case, the court ruled that what happened to the boy after Gore left his mother could not be put before the jury. The Associated Press later reported that Gore left the child in Georgia before driving on north. The woman testified against Gore at his trials, including the Roark trial and the Novick trial, where the courts allowed her account as evidence of identity.
The FBI tracked the stolen Toyota to Paducah, Kentucky. Agents arrested Gore there on March 17, 1988, on federal charges unrelated to the Florida killings. He had the car and, according to the Associated Press, the woman's bank and credit cards in his jacket pocket.
The agents read Gore his rights, and he signed a written waiver. When they asked how he had come to be in Paducah, he said he did not want to answer any more questions. They stopped at once and took him to a federal prison. A federal magistrate then appointed a lawyer to represent him on the federal charge. Gore later said that federal public defenders had advised him not to cooperate with police, and that he had ignored the advice because he had done nothing wrong.
On March 24, 1988, detectives from the Metro-Dade Police Department interviewed him. They read him his rights again. He agreed to talk but refused to sign a written waiver. The detectives asked about his background, about crimes in the Miami area and about the disappearance of Susan Roark. Gore said he did not remember whether he had driven a black Mustang with Tennessee plates and that he had never met Susan Roark. He denied knowing Robyn Novick. When the detectives prepared to show him her photograph, he told them to "just make sure it is not gory." He also said that "if I did this, I deserve the death penalty." The Associated Press later reported that his eyes filled with tears when he saw the picture.
The FBI agents and the detectives all testified that he never asked for a lawyer, and the detectives said he turned down their offer to call the Miami public defender's office for him. Those statements became a central issue in his appeals.
A Columbia County grand jury indicted Gore on July 28, 1989, on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and armed robbery in the death of Susan Roark, according to the Commission on Capital Cases. His trial lawyer was Assistant Public Defender Jimmy Hunt. The jury found him guilty on all three counts on March 14, 1990. On April 2, 1990, it recommended a death sentence by a vote of 11 to 1. The next day Circuit Judge E. Vernon Douglas sentenced him to death for the murder, to life in prison for the kidnapping and to 15 years for the armed robbery.
The judge noted that Gore had taken part in the legal arguments in his own case and had even cross-examined one of the State's witnesses. Four aggravating circumstances were found: prior convictions for violent felonies, murder committed during a kidnapping, murder for financial gain, and a cold, calculated and premeditated killing. The defense mitigation, the testimony about his father and the psychiatrist's diagnosis, was found insufficient to outweigh them.
The State's case rested on circumstantial evidence: Gore's presence with Roark on the night she disappeared, her car and her jewelry in his hands soon afterward, his remark about the purse, and the testimony of the woman who survived the March 14 attack. Prosecutors argued that the attack on the surviving woman and the Roark case shared so many features that they pointed to the same man. The trial court agreed and let the jury hear about the later crime as proof of identity.
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the Roark convictions and the death sentence on April 16, 1992, in Gore v. State, 599 So. 2d 978. It rejected each of his main arguments.
On the statements to the Metro-Dade detectives, the court followed the United States Supreme Court's decision in McNeil v. Wisconsin. The lawyer appointed for Gore on the federal charge did not stop state officers from questioning him about other crimes, it held, and there was no credible evidence that he had asked for a lawyer. Because the FBI agents had stopped questioning him as soon as he said he wanted to stop, and he was advised of his rights again a week later, the detectives' interview did not violate his right to remain silent.
On the evidence of the March 14 attack, the court found "pervasive similarities" between that crime and the Roark case and called the differences "insubstantial." In both, it noted, the victim fit a similar profile, the man used a false name, he took the woman's car and jewelry, he pawned the jewelry soon afterward, and he left the state. Each feature alone might be common, the court said, but together they made a "unique modus operandi" that pointed to Gore.
The court also upheld the denial of a continuance, the handling of a videotaped deposition, the denial of a motion for acquittal on the kidnapping count, and the State's use of the defense psychiatrist's testimony to rebut mitigation. It did find one error: the evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was cold, calculated and premeditated. With three valid aggravating circumstances left and an 11 to 1 jury recommendation, the court held the error harmless.
Chief Justice Shaw and Justices Overton, McDonald, Grimes and Harding joined the opinion. Justice Barkett, joined by Justice Kogan, concurred only in the result; she disagreed with adopting the reasoning of McNeil but found any error harmless. The United States Supreme Court declined to review the case on November 30, 1992.
A Dade County grand jury indicted Gore on March 21, 1990, for the first-degree murder and armed robbery of Robyn Novick. He was tried in 1995. The jury found him guilty on May 5, 1995, and recommended death. On June 30, 1995, Circuit Judge Thomas Carney sentenced him to death for the murder and to life for the robbery. By then he was already under the Columbia County death sentence and serving the life sentence in the case of the surviving woman.
Before the trial, the court had ruled that the jury could hear about the Roark case and the March 14 attack, but only to show the identity of Novick's killer, and with a limiting instruction. It barred any evidence of what happened to the surviving woman's son after Gore left her. Gore testified in his own defense. He admitted that he knew Novick and had been with her the night she disappeared, but he said she had lent him her car, and he denied killing her.
On October 1, 1998, the Florida Supreme Court reversed the conviction and sentence and ordered a new trial, in Gore v. State, 719 So. 2d 1197. The unanimous opinion was a sharp rebuke of the trial prosecutor.
The court found that the prosecutor had questioned Gore about what happened to the child without first asking the judge's permission, in "blatant disregard" of the pretrial ruling, and that the damage was done before defense counsel could object. He had also questioned Gore, with no proper basis, about an uncharged incident and about another woman, questions the court said served only to show bad character. In closing he told the jurors, "[i]f you believe he's lying to you, he's guilty," which the court held misstated the burden of proof. He gave his personal opinion of Gore's guilt, traded insults with him and used needless sarcasm. The court said the prosecutor had "abandoned any semblance of professionalism" and called his performance "a 'textbook' example of overzealous advocacy."
Because the case was circumstantial, with no physical evidence directly linking Gore to the killing and no confession, the court could not say the errors were harmless. It did not reach Gore's other claims. In a footnote it noted that the assistant attorney general who defended the conviction on appeal, Barbara Yates, had not been the trial prosecutor, and it commended her professional conduct. Chief Justice Harding and Justices Overton, Shaw, Kogan, Wells, Anstead and Pariente joined the opinion.
The second trial was held in Dade County in early 1999 before Circuit Judge Leslie Rothenberg. Gore argued that double jeopardy barred a retrial because of the prosecutor's misconduct. The Florida Supreme Court later rejected that claim, holding that a retrial is barred only when misconduct is meant to goad a defendant into seeking a mistrial, and that Gore's conviction had been reversed on appeal.
Gore again testified. He said he ran an escort service and had arranged escort work for Novick. He admitted being with her at the tavern that night and driving her car. He said he had followed a group of men to a warehouse in Homestead, that someone there told him Novick had been "picked up," and that he had not killed her. He said the State's witnesses were lying, and he gave no explanation for having the victims' property. The Associated Press reported that he also claimed all three women had worked for him and that the surviving woman had been hurt trying to jump from a moving car.
During the trials, the Associated Press reported, he often shouted, laughed and howled in the courtroom. Asked whether he felt competent, he answered that he was "absolutely competent" and "absolutely lucid."
The jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery on February 12, 1999. Gore switched several times between representing himself and accepting counsel, and before the penalty phase he chose to represent himself, complaining that his lawyers had not presented mitigating witnesses. On March 16, 1999, the jury recommended death by a vote of 12 to 0. On April 19, 1999, Judge Rothenberg sentenced him to death and to life in prison for the robbery. She found three aggravating circumstances: prior convictions for violent felonies, including the Roark murder and the crimes against the surviving woman; murder during a robbery; and a cold, calculated and premeditated killing. She found no statutory mitigation and gave little weight to the three minor nonstatutory points.
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed unanimously on April 19, 2001, in Gore v. State, 784 So. 2d 418. It held that the trial judge had properly allowed Gore to represent himself in the penalty phase after the required inquiries, that his lawyers had made reasonable efforts to find witnesses and experts, and that Gore himself had blocked a psychiatric evaluation by refusing to cooperate. His choice, the court said, was made "with eyes open."
The court found that one improper question at the retrial had been met by a sustained objection and a curative instruction, and that Gore himself had later returned to the subject many times. It upheld the exclusion of evidence of other crimes that Gore offered in his defense, because he had not shown the underlying facts or how they were similar. When Gore testified at the penalty phase that "I'm not a violent person," he opened the door to questions about his other crimes, the court held. One of the trial judge's findings about Novick's last moments was speculative, it said, but the error was harmless, and the death sentence was proportionate. Chief Justice Wells and Justices Shaw, Harding, Anstead, Pariente, Lewis and Quince joined.
For the next 12 years Gore's cases moved through the state and federal courts, and he lost at every stage. In the Roark case, a motion for postconviction relief filed in 1994 sat in the circuit court until it was denied on June 4, 2001; the Commission on Capital Cases named that long-pending motion as the main cause of delay in the case. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial on April 17, 2003, and on the same day denied a petition for habeas corpus. A federal judge in the Middle District of Florida denied his federal habeas petition on January 31, 2006, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed on July 20, 2007, rejecting his challenge to the use of his statements to the Metro-Dade detectives. The United States Supreme Court declined review on February 19, 2008. A further motion filed in June 2008 was dismissed as untimely.
Gore also asked for DNA testing of 20 items gathered in the Roark investigation, including items from her car, and of a pair of pants from the Novick investigation. He asked the court to order DNA samples from the surviving woman and from the friend who had seen him with the Corvette, arguing that the results would show her testimony was false. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of testing on April 8, 2010. It said Gore had not shown how any result could clear him, that several items had been found where contamination was likely, and that his request amounted to a "fishing expedition." His presence with Roark, his possession of her car, the pawned jewelry and his admission to a witness tied him strongly to the crime, the court said, and a negative result would not prove he was not the killer.
In the Novick case, a postconviction motion filed in 2004 was denied on September 13, 2005. On June 25, 2009, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed. Gore had raised claims about his competency, his penalty-phase lawyers, access to records, Florida's capital sentencing procedures and whether he was insane to be executed. The court found that he had blocked his own lawyers' access to records, that most potential penalty-phase witnesses had been unwilling to testify, and that he had knowingly waived a further sentencing hearing. It held that a claim of insanity to be executed was premature while no death warrant had been signed.
Gore's mental state was argued over for most of his time in the courts. The 2009 opinion sets out the history. In 1998, in the Columbia County case, two court-appointed experts found him competent and two defense experts found him incompetent; the judge found him competent and noted his manipulative behavior. Before the Novick retrial in 1999, an expert, Dr. Haber, evaluated him and found him competent, describing him as cooperative but manipulative. In the Novick postconviction case, three experts were appointed; one found him incompetent and two found him competent. The commission's records show that Gore filed a notice of incompetence in 2002 and that a hearing on April 9, 2004, found him competent. The trial judges concluded, the Supreme Court said, that Gore had deliberately manipulated the proceedings and was not incompetent or seriously mentally ill.
In prison, the commission's records list a long series of disciplinary reports between May 1994 and February 2006, for offenses including disobeying orders, possessing contraband, making threats, fighting, assault and possessing narcotics.
Governor Rick Scott signed Gore's death warrant on May 13, 2013, setting his execution for June 24 in the Novick case. The warrant did not cover the Roark case.
On May 18, Gore's state-appointed lawyer, Steven Hammer, wrote to the governor that he had reason to believe his client was insane to be executed, describing irrational behavior and statements. Under Florida law the governor then stayed the execution and, on May 22, appointed a commission of three psychiatrists. They interviewed Gore for about three hours on May 28, gave him neuropsychiatric tests, reviewed his records and talked with two corrections officers. Gore told them that the state was part of a vast conspiracy to harvest prisoners' organs, that the governor was involved, and that a state senator wanted his eyes for a blind son. The psychiatrists unanimously concluded that these claims were a fabrication, that he had no current mental illness, that he was feigning psychiatric symptoms and that he understood the death penalty and why it had been imposed on him. On May 30 the governor found him competent and lifted the stay.
Hammer did not ask a court to review that finding. On June 21, at 7 p.m., a federal lawyer for Gore, Todd Scher, filed a habeas petition in the federal district court for the Southern District of Florida. He conceded that the claim had not been raised in the state courts but argued that the failure should be excused because Gore's state lawyer had been ineffective. The district court dismissed the petition. On June 24, the scheduled day, the Eleventh Circuit granted a temporary stay; the Associated Press reported that it came less than two hours before the execution was to begin. On June 27, a panel of Judges Tjoflat, Carnes and Hull affirmed the dismissal, holding that the rule Gore relied on did not apply to a claim of incompetence to be executed, and lifted the stay. The panel said it was not deciding whether Gore had shown enough evidence of incompetence.
The governor reset the execution for July 10. On July 2 a circuit court allowed Gore's federal lawyer to represent him in state court, and a new motion for a stay and a hearing followed. A circuit judge in Bradford County, where the state prison is, stayed the execution and held a hearing on July 15 and 16, 2013. A defense expert, Dr. Jethro Toomer, who had interviewed Gore on July 8, testified that he was not competent. The State called two of the governor's psychiatrists, Dr. Myers and Dr. Werner, and four corrections officers.
The judge found that Gore was feigning delusions that his execution was a plot to harvest his organs, a conspiracy he said involved China, the Illuminati, Satan worshipers, the national debt and the governor. There was "no credible evidence," the judge found, that Gore believed he was to be executed for anything other than the murder of Robyn Novick. The judge found the State's experts persuasive and gave little weight to Toomer, whose evaluation was incomplete, who had not reviewed the records thoroughly or interviewed staff, and who relied on Gore's own account. In court, apart from one inappropriate word, Gore had sat quietly, paid attention and helped his lawyers.
On August 13, 2013, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously affirmed in Gore v. State, No. SC13-1281. The State's psychiatrists had diagnosed antisocial personality disorder, not a severe mental illness, and concluded that he was malingering; corrections officers testified that he was manipulative and showed symptoms mainly in front of certain people. The court restated the test from Ford v. Wainwright and Panetti v. Quarterman: a prisoner must have a rational understanding of the link between his crime and his punishment. Competence, it added, does not require a person to be "normal" or "rational" in the everyday sense. Chief Justice Polston and Justices Pariente, Lewis, Quince, Canady, Labarga and Perry joined.
After the August ruling Governor Scott set the execution for September 10. On August 19 he wrote to the warden of Florida State Prison moving it to October 1 at 6 p.m., at the request of the attorney general's office. Attorney General Pam Bondi's re-election campaign had scheduled its official kickoff event for the same day, WFSU reported. Scott said he had not known why she asked. Her spokeswoman said Bondi wanted to be available to carry out her duties during an execution. On September 9 Bondi said in a statement that Gore's execution had already been delayed twice and that her office should not have asked for another delay.
In the last week the federal district court denied Gore's challenge to the state rulings on September 26, and the Eleventh Circuit refused to stay the execution on September 27, according to Amnesty International. On October 1 the United States Supreme Court denied his application for a stay, which had been presented to Justice Thomas and referred to the full court.
Gore was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison, near Starke, on the evening of Tuesday, October 1, 2013, and was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. It was the fourth date set for his execution that year. He made no final statement. A Department of Corrections spokeswoman, Jessica Cary, said he had asked for a last meal of sausage and pepperoni pizza but did not eat it; he drank a soda and met with a spiritual adviser and one of his lawyers. He had spent 23 years on death row. It was Florida's fifth execution of 2013, Amnesty International reported.
Gore never admitted either murder. His own account, given under oath at the Novick retrial, was that he ran an escort service, that the women had worked for him, that Novick had lent him her car and gone off with other men, and that the State's witnesses had lied. Two juries rejected that account in the Novick case and one in the Roark case.
The State's case in both murders was circumstantial. In 1998 the Florida Supreme Court noted that no physical evidence directly linked Gore to Novick's killing and that he had not confessed. The court records point to the circumstantial links: Gore was the last person seen with each woman, and he had her car and property soon afterward.
Two of the legal findings against him were cut back on appeal. In 1992 the Florida Supreme Court held that the evidence did not support the finding that Roark's killing was cold, calculated and premeditated, though it upheld the sentence. In 2001 it found that one of the trial judge's findings about Novick's final moments was speculative, though it held the error harmless.
The record is not consistent on a few dates. The Florida Supreme Court opinions give March 11, 1988, as the day Robyn Novick was last seen, while the Commission on Capital Cases lists the offense date as March 10. Associated Press reports in 2013 gave March 11 as the date her body was found, but the court opinions give March 16. The commission's records say the jury in the first Novick trial voted 11 to 1 for death, while the 1998 Supreme Court opinion calls the recommendation unanimous. And the Associated Press reported that the Eleventh Circuit lifted its June stay on June 28, 2013, a day after the date on the court's opinion.
Whether Gore was mentally ill was argued for more than 15 years. Defense experts at several stages found him incompetent, and a former lawyer called him "mentally deranged," according to the Associated Press. Every court that ruled on the question found him competent, and in 2013 the governor's psychiatrists and the courts found that he was feigning his symptoms.
August 17, 1963: Marshall Lee Gore is born.
1982 to 1986: Probation in three Miami-Dade cases, two for carrying a concealed firearm and one for grand theft.
January 30, 1988: Susan Roark is last seen with Gore in Cleveland, Tennessee.
January 31, 1988: Gore arrives in Tampa driving a black Mustang; jewelry later identified as Roark's is pawned.
February 19, 1988: According to her later testimony, Gore tells a woman riding with him that a purse in the car belonged to a girl he had killed.
March 11, 1988: Robyn Novick, 30, is last seen leaving a tavern parking lot in south Dade County with a man identified as Gore.
March 12, 1988: Gore is seen driving Novick's Corvette, then wrecks and abandons it.
March 14, 1988: Gore attacks a woman in Dade County and takes her car, with her son inside; she survives.
March 16, 1988: Novick's body is found in a rural area of Dade County.
March 17, 1988: FBI agents arrest Gore in Paducah, Kentucky, on a federal charge.
March 24, 1988: Metro-Dade detectives interview Gore; he denies knowing the women.
April 2, 1988: Susan Roark's remains are found in Columbia County, Florida.
July 28, 1989: Columbia County indictment for murder, kidnapping and armed robbery.
March 14, 1990: Columbia County jury convicts Gore on all three counts.
March 21, 1990: Dade County indictment in the Novick case.
April 2 and 3, 1990: Jury recommends death 11 to 1; Judge E. Vernon Douglas imposes it.
April 16, 1992: Florida Supreme Court affirms the Roark convictions and death sentence.
November 30, 1992: United States Supreme Court declines review.
May 5, 1995: Dade County jury convicts Gore of Novick's murder and robbery.
June 30, 1995: Judge Thomas Carney sentences him to death.
October 1, 1998: Florida Supreme Court reverses the Novick conviction for prosecutorial misconduct.
February 12, 1999: Retrial jury convicts Gore again.
March 16, 1999: Jury recommends death 12 to 0.
April 19, 1999: Judge Leslie Rothenberg sentences him to death.
April 19, 2001: Florida Supreme Court affirms.
April 17, 2003: Florida Supreme Court affirms denial of postconviction relief in the Roark case.
April 9, 2004: A court finds Gore competent after his notice of incompetence.
January 31, 2006: Federal district court denies habeas relief in the Roark case.
July 20, 2007: Eleventh Circuit affirms.
June 25, 2009: Florida Supreme Court affirms denial of postconviction relief in the Novick case.
April 8, 2010: Florida Supreme Court affirms denial of DNA testing in the Roark case.
May 13, 2013: Governor Rick Scott signs the death warrant for June 24.
May 28 to 30, 2013: Three psychiatrists examine Gore; the governor finds him competent.
June 24, 2013: Eleventh Circuit grants a temporary stay on the day of execution.
June 27, 2013: Eleventh Circuit lifts the stay; execution reset for July 10.
July 15 and 16, 2013: Competency hearing in Bradford County; Gore found to be feigning.
August 13, 2013: Florida Supreme Court affirms that he is competent to be executed.
August 19, 2013: Execution moved from September 10 to October 1 at the attorney general's request.
September 9, 2013: Attorney General Pam Bondi says the request should not have been made.
October 1, 2013: United States Supreme Court denies a stay; Gore is executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m.