Background
Andrew Richard Lukehart was convicted of first-degree felony murder and aggravated child abuse for the February 25, 1996 killing of five-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw in Jacksonville, Florida. Lukehart was his victim’s mother’s boyfriend and had a prior felony conviction for injuring another girlfriend’s baby, for which he was on probation at the time of the murder. The jury recommended death by a nine-to-three vote, and the trial court sentenced Lukehart to death after finding three statutory aggravators, including that the murder was committed during aggravated child abuse and that the victim was under twelve years of age. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence on direct appeal in 2000, and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in 2001.
Over the nearly twenty-five years that followed, Lukehart pursued multiple rounds of postconviction relief in state and federal court, including an initial rule 3.850 motion, a first successive postconviction motion, successive habeas petitions raising Hurst v. Florida claims, and federal habeas proceedings that were ultimately resolved against him by the Eleventh Circuit in 2022. Governor DeSantis signed Lukehart’s death warrant on May 1, 2026, scheduling his execution for June 2, 2026. Lukehart then filed a third successive postconviction motion and sought a stay, raising claims that Florida’s lethal injection protocol was unconstitutional as applied to him due to severe kidney disease, that the protocol was facially unconstitutional, and that the thirty-two-day warrant period violated his due process rights.
The circuit court summarily denied all claims. Lukehart appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which also took up his challenge to the denial of public records demands he had directed to the District Eight Medical Examiner’s Office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the Department of Corrections under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.852.
The Court’s Holding
The Florida Supreme Court, per curiam and unanimously, affirmed the circuit court’s summary denial of Lukehart’s successive postconviction motion on all four claims and denied his motion for a stay of execution. On the as-applied Eighth Amendment challenge, the court held the claim was both untimely and meritless. It was untimely because Lukehart’s medical records showed deteriorating kidney values beginning in 2023—more than a year before he filed—and his argument that the claim only ripened when his condition worsened in January 2026 was rejected in line with a consistent line of precedent. On the merits, the court found his allegations that etomidate “may” create the “potential” for exaggerated cardiovascular effects were conclusory speculations falling far short of establishing a substantial and imminent risk of needless suffering, and he failed to identify any alternative method of execution as required by Glossip v. Gross.
The facial Eighth Amendment challenge was likewise rejected as untimely given the protocol’s essential stability since 2017, and as meritless because the court had already upheld the current three-drug protocol against Eighth Amendment challenge in Asay v. State (2017) and had repeatedly declined to revisit that holding. The due process claim concerning the thirty-two-day warrant period was denied on the merits, with the court reaffirming its established rule that an expedited warrant litigation schedule does not, in itself, deprive a capital defendant of due process where he has received notice and opportunity to be heard on every matter decided.
On the public records claims, the court found no abuse of discretion in the circuit court’s denial of Lukehart’s rule 3.852 demands. Because the underlying method-of-execution claim was legally insufficient—Lukehart offered no alternative execution method—the records sought could not relate to a colorable claim for postconviction relief. The court also rejected his attempt to reframe the records denial as a standalone constitutional challenge under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.
Key Takeaways
- An as-applied Eighth Amendment method-of-execution claim based on a medical condition is untimely if the condition was discoverable through due diligence more than one year before filing; gradual worsening of a known condition does not reset the clock.
- A capital defendant raising a method-of-execution claim must identify a feasible, readily available alternative execution method—failure to do so renders the claim legally insufficient, regardless of the defendant’s moral or religious objections to proposing one.
- Florida’s current three-drug lethal injection protocol, unchanged in its essentials since 2017 and upheld in Asay, remains facially constitutional under the Eighth Amendment.
- An expedited warrant litigation period—here thirty-two days—does not violate due process so long as the defendant receives notice and an opportunity to be heard on each matter; no right to effective collateral counsel attaches to warrant proceedings.
- Public records demands under rule 3.852 are not a vehicle for fishing expeditions; where no colorable underlying claim exists, denial of such demands is well within the circuit court’s discretion.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces a well-developed body of Florida Supreme Court precedent governing last-stage capital litigation and closes what remains a frequently tested set of arguments in death warrant proceedings. Defense attorneys should note that the court continues to apply a strict one-year limitations rule to medical condition claims, measured from when the condition was discoverable—not from any subsequent deterioration—and that the Glossip alternative-method requirement is non-negotiable in Florida courts, which are bound by the state constitution’s conformity clause to follow federal Eighth Amendment doctrine as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.
For practitioners and legal observers, the opinion also underscores the limited utility of rule 3.852 public records demands when the predicate postconviction claim is legally deficient, and reaffirms that challenges to the compressed timeline of warrant litigation are unlikely to succeed given the court’s repeated rejection of such arguments across numerous recent cases.