The state of Florida never provided medically necessary gender-affirming care to Duane Owen — causing her enormous suffering and violating her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment for the more than 30 years she was in state custody. pic.twitter.com/kjmzCrY2uh
— ACLU (@ACLU) June 16, 2023
Duane Owen executed in the state of Florida on Thursday, sentenced to death for the 1984, rape and fatal stabbing of Karen Slattery, 14, and for the rape and deadly hammer attack on Georgianna Worden, 38. Owen also attacked two other women in Palm Beach County who survived.
The defense had argued Owen had dementia and gender dysphoria, but psychiatrists for the state said Owen had a good memory, that Owen had faked schizophrenia, showed no signs of “gender dysphoria,” and said instead that Owen was sexually sadistic. During court proceedings, Owen stated that he believed he had “absorbed the souls” of his victims and that they “still lived inside him.”
In response, the ACLU tweeted that the state of Florida had caused Owen “enormous suffering,” and that in denying Owen cosmetic surgery in prison, had “violated her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment for the more than 30 years she was in state custody.”