Florida inmate asks Supreme Court to delay execution and allow DNA testing in 1996 killing
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for a Florida death row inmate filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court on Monday, asking justices to halt his execution scheduled for Thursday and allow DNA testing that they say could clear him in a 1996 killing.
Daniel Conahan Jr., 72, was sentenced to death for the April 1996 abduction and strangling of Richard Montgomery, whose nude and mutilated body was found in a wooded, trash-strewn area in Charlotte County. Investigators described the site as a dumping spot, and authorities have long suspected Conahan in a string of similar killings of young men in southwest Florida during the 1990s.
Prosecutors said Conahan killed Montgomery after hiring him to pose for nude photographs. Conahan has maintained his innocence and, according to the petition filed Monday, has been seeking DNA testing of evidence from the crime scene and Montgomery's body since March 2025. The testing, his lawyers argue, would “conclusively establish that he is not responsible for the death.”
The filing also points to the timing of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ death warrant, which was signed Aug. 11 while Conahan's DNA motion was still pending. The state post-conviction court denied that motion within 24 hours, a move his legal team says effectively cut off a legitimate avenue of review.
“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 states.
The appeal lands amid an unusually active year of executions in Florida, which has put 14 people to death so far in 2025 — more than any other state. If the execution proceeds, Conahan would be the 15th inmate put to death in Florida this year.
The case also highlights a recurring legal debate over post-conviction DNA testing, particularly in cases where physical evidence may have degraded or where the condemned inmate has long maintained innocence. Courts have generally been reluctant to delay executions for new testing unless the evidence could reasonably alter the outcome.
Conahan's attorneys are not asking the Supreme Court to declare their client innocent. They are asking only for the time to let the court consider whether the lower court should have allowed the DNA motion to proceed before the state moved to carry out the sentence.