STARKE, Fla. -- Anthony Bertolotti, condemned to death for stabbing and strangling a 46-year-old woman in 1983, was scheduled to die in Florida's electric chair Saturday night barring intervention by the Supreme Court.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta refused Friday to block the execution, but extended the temporary stay granted earlier to allow Bertolotti's state-paid attorneys time to appeal to the high court, his last hope.
Officials at Florida State Prison near Starke had prepared to execute Bertolotti, 36, at 7 a.m. EST Saturday until the Atlanta court issued its 12-hour extension. The execution was then rescheduled for 7:01 p.m.
Bertolotti was convicted in 1984 and sentenced to death for the murder of Carol Ward at her Orlando home. He carried Ward's groceries from her car to her house, then stabbed her at least 14 times with two different knives, raped her and strangled her.
The Atlanta appeals court heard arguments Friday morning that Bertolotti's trial attorneys erred by not having him examined by a psychiatrist. Such an examination, they said, could have shown Bertolotti was insane and thereby saved him from the electric chair.
The Atlanta court rejected those claims, as the Florida Supreme Court and a federal judge in Orlando had done earlier in the week.
In a letter to state officials several years ago, Bertolotti wrote Ward should have kept her doors locked and suggested he had 'really done her a favor' by killing her. He said it was too bad her husband wasn't home at the time.
The last person executed in Florida was serial sex killer Ted Bundy on Jan. 24. Florida currently has 292 men and four women on death row.
