Florida Inmate Seeks Execution Stay for DNA Testing
Florida Inmate Seeks Execution Stay for DNA Testing
The News
Attorneys for Florida death row inmate Daniel Conahan Jr. asked the Supreme Court on Monday to stay his execution, scheduled for Thursday by lethal injection, so DNA evidence from a 1996 killing can finally be tested.
Conahan, 72, was sentenced to death for the April 1996 kidnapping and strangulation of Richard Montgomery, whose body was found nude and emasculated in a wooded area in Charlotte County, Florida.
He has denied any involvement in the murder and has been asking for DNA testing since March 2025.
What He Is Asking For
The filing is narrow. Conahan is not asking the justices to declare him innocent or to release him from prison — only to stop the execution long enough for the court to review his claims.
Timeline
Richard Montgomery is killed. His body is found in what authorities described as an apparent dumping area strewn with trash in Charlotte County, Florida. Authorities said Conahan killed Montgomery after paying him to pose for nude photos.
Conahan begins requesting DNA testing of evidence collected at the scene and from Montgomery's body, arguing it would conclusively establish he is not responsible for the death.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signs Conahan's death warrant while the motion for DNA testing is still pending, according to the stay petition.
The state postconviction court denies the DNA testing motion.
Conahan's attorneys file for a stay at the Supreme Court.
The scheduled execution date.
Reactions
"Mr. Conahan does not ask to be declared innocent at this posture. Nor does he ask to be released from prison. All he asks is for this Court to stay his imminent execution so that this Court can review his meritorious claims," the filing says.
Authorities have long suspected Conahan in similar homicides committed in the 1990s in southwest Florida. He has denied involvement in Montgomery's murder.
What's Next
The Supreme Court has to act before Thursday. If the justices decline, the execution proceeds on schedule.
If a stay is granted, the fight returns to whether the untested crime scene evidence and material taken from Montgomery's body get analyzed at all — the question the state postconviction court answered in the negative within a day of the warrant being signed.
More
Florida has executed 14 people this year, an unusually heavy pace for a single state.
Conahan's case sits at the pressure point of the modern death penalty fight: a decades-old conviction, physical evidence that was never run through modern DNA analysis, and a warrant signed while the request to test it was still open.
Poll
Should the Supreme Court halt the execution so the DNA evidence can be tested?
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