STARKE, Fla. — A man who shot a man and woman outside a Florida bar in an attempted revenge killing is set to be executed on Tuesday.
Michael Bernard Bell, 54, is scheduled to be executed at Florida State Prison near Starke, unless he is granted a last-minute reprieve. In 1995, he was convicted of murdering Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith and sentenced to death.
Bell would be the eighth person executed in Florida this year, with the ninth scheduled for later this month. The state executed six people in 2023, compared to only one last year.
This year, 25 men have been executed in the United States, tying the total from the previous year.
Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, with Texas and South Carolina tied for second with four each. Alabama has executed three people, Oklahoma has killed two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee have all killed one.
According to court records, in December 1993, Bell saw what he thought was the car of the man who had fatally shot his brother earlier that year. Bell seemed unaware that the man had sold the car to West.
Bell summoned two friends and armed himself with an AK-47 rifle, authorities said. They discovered the car parked outside a liquor lounge and waited. When West, Smith, and another woman eventually left the club, Bell approached their car and opened fire, according to officials.
West died at the scene, while Smith died on his way to the hospital. The other woman escaped injury. According to witnesses, Bell fired at a crowd of onlookers before fleeing the scene. He was eventually arrested the next year.
Bell was later convicted of three additional murders. He fatally shot a woman and her toddler son in 1989, and he killed his mother’s boyfriend about four months before the attack on West and Smith, officials said.
Attorneys for Bell have filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawyers argued in their state filing that Bell’s execution should be halted because of newly discovered evidence about witness testimony. But justices unanimously rejected the argument last week and pointed to overwhelming evidence of Bell’s guilt in a 54-page opinion.
Bell’s attorneys filed a similar petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, but the panel has not yet issued a ruling.