Press Article: Tampa Death Row Inmate Charles Finney Dies After Three Decades
TAMPA – Charles William Finney, sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of his neighbor, Sandra Sutherland, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 70, after spending more than 30 years on Florida’s death row. The Florida Department of Corrections confirmed his death, although the cause remains unclear at this time. He had been held at Union Correctional Institution and was recently transported to a medical facility in Jacksonville before his death.
Finney was convicted of the brutal murder of Sutherland, who was found raped, bound, and stabbed in her northeast Tampa apartment. Her brother, Rob Sutherland, expressed mixed emotions upon learning of Finney’s death, suggesting that the lengthy prison term may have been worse than execution itself. “If they’d set an execution date, I would’ve gone to that,” he said, acknowledging the toll of Finney’s three decades in solitary confinement.
Sutherland, a U.S. Army veteran and customer service worker, was murdered in January 1991. Finney’s fingerprints linked him to the crime scene and a stolen video cassette recorder that was later pawned. He was convicted in September 1992, with the jury recommending the death penalty.
Finney continued to assert his innocence through numerous appeals, the last of which was declined by the Florida Supreme Court in 2018. His death marks at least the 10th in-custody death of a condemned inmate in Florida from natural causes in the past two years.
Rob Sutherland reflected on the emotional burden of living with his sister’s murder for so many years, stating, “Time carried out the sentence. Not the governor.” Advocates against capital punishment argue that Finney’s case underscores the flaws within Florida’s death penalty system.
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Photo credit www.tampabay.com
