Michael Bernard Bell, a man convicted of a deadly revenge shooting outside a Jacksonville bar in 1993, was executed Tuesday evening after spending nearly 20 years on Florida’s death row. He was 54 years old. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Bell was pronounced dead at 6:30 p.m. EDT at Florida State Prison near Starke.
The U.S. Supreme Court had denied his final appeal for a stay earlier in the day, clearing the way for the execution to proceed. Bell was sentenced to death for the murders of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith, who were shot outside a liquor lounge in December 1993. The shooting was part of what prosecutors described as a botched attempt at vigilante revenge.
According to court records, Bell mistakenly believed that West was the man responsible for killing his brother earlier that year. Unaware that the actual suspect had sold his vehicle to West, Bell tracked the car to the lounge and planned his retaliation.
Armed with an AK-47 rifle and joined by two accomplices, Bell waited outside the establishment until West, Smith, and another woman exited the building. He then approached and opened fire. West died at the scene, while Smith succumbed to her injuries en route to the hospital. The third woman escaped unharmed. Witnesses said Bell also fired shots toward a crowd of bystanders before fleeing. He was arrested the following year.
Further investigations revealed Bell’s involvement in three additional murders. In 1989, he fatally shot a woman and her toddler son. Four months before the Jacksonville attack, Bell also murdered his mother’s boyfriend. Tuesday’s execution was the 26th carried out in the United States this year, surpassing the 25 executions recorded in 2024 and marking the highest number in a single year since 2015, when 28 were reported.
Florida has now executed more individuals than any other state in 2025, with six executions already carried out and a seventh scheduled for June 24. Texas and South Carolina follow with four each, while Alabama has executed three. Oklahoma has carried out two executions, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee have each conducted one.
Bell’s death sentence highlights the continued use of capital punishment in Florida, which remains among the most active death penalty states in the country. All executions conducted in the state this year, including Bell’s, have been carried out via lethal injection. With executions rising nationally, the debate over the death penalty continues to intensify, drawing renewed attention to issues of justice, deterrence, and wrongful convictions.