Andrew Richard Lukehart v. State of Florida

── Andrew Richard Lukehart v. State of Florida ── Court: Supreme Court of Florida Date: May 27, 2026 Category: General Supreme Court of Florida ____________ No. SC2026-0736 ____________ ANDREW RICHARD LUKEHART, Appellant, vs. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. May 27, 2026 PER CURIAM. Andrew Richard Lukehart was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Gabrielle Hanshaw. On May 1, 2026, Governor DeSantis issued a death warrant scheduling Lukehart’s execution for June 2, 2026. Lukehart unsuccessfully sought successive postconviction relief in the circuit court and now appeals. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const.; see also State v. Fourth Dist. Ct. of Appeal, 697 So. 2d 70, 71 (Fla. 1997) (holding “that in addition to our appellate jurisdiction over sentences of death, we have exclusive jurisdiction to review all types of collateral proceedings in death penalty cases”). We affirm. We also deny Lukehart’s motion for a stay of execution. I On February 25, 1996, Lukehart killed five-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw in Jacksonville. At the time, Lukehart lived with Gabrielle’s mother, Misty Rhue, who was his girlfriend. After Lukehart took Gabrielle to a room to change her diaper, Rhue saw Lukehart drive away from the house. Rhue searched the house but could not find Gabrielle. Lukehart initially told Rhue and the police that Gabrielle had been abducted, leading to an eighteen-hour search by the Jacksonville and Clay County Sheriff’s Offices. Lukehart eventually told the officers that he had killed Gabrielle and directed them to a pond where they found her body. Lukehart told the police that he had dropped Gabrielle on her head while changing her diaper and then shook her. He said that, realizing Gabrielle had died, he panicked, drove to a rural area, and threw her into the pond, injuring her head on the car door in the process. Gabrielle’s injuries were inconsistent with Lukehart’s story. She had suffered five separate impacts to her head, two of which caused skull fractures and could have each been fatal. Lukehart -2- testified during the guilt phase of his trial that he had lied when he told the police that he had dropped Gabrielle on her head. He testified that Gabrielle would not lie flat on the floor as he tried to change her diaper. So, he repeatedly and forcefully pushed her head and neck back onto the floor, killing her. A jury convicted Lukehart of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. Lukehart v. State, 776 So. 2d 906, 911 (Fla. 2000). At the penalty phase, the State established that Lukehart had pleaded guilty to felony child abuse for injuring a previous girlfriend’s baby and was on probation for that offense at the time he murdered Gabrielle. Id. The jury recommended the death sentence by a nine-to-three vote. Id. The trial court agreed and sentenced Lukehart to death for the first-degree murder. Id. In the trial court’s sentencing order, it found the State established three statutory aggravators: (1) the murder was committed during the commission of the felony of aggravated child abuse; (2) the victim was under twelve years of age;1 and 1. We struck this aggravator on direct appeal as improperly doubling the same aspect of the crime as the aggravator about the murder having been committed by a person engaged in aggravated child abuse. But we found that its inclusion was harmless beyond -3- (3) Lukehart had a prior felony conviction for child abuse and was on felony probation for that offense (two factors merged). 2 Id. at 911. The trial court found two statutory mitigators: (1) Lukehart’s age (twenty-two) and (2) his substantially impaired capacity to appreciate the crim