James Robertson

James Robertson entered Florida’s prison system as a teenager and spent decades accumulating additional time for violence, weapons offenses, and attempted escapes. After years in close management, Robertson became convinced that life on death row would be preferable. In 2008, he put a chilling plan into motion, strangling his cellmate, Frank Hart, with a garrote made from socks—just eight days before Hart was scheduled to be released. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the life and crimes of James Robertson. Robertson openly admitted the murder was premeditated and made it clear that he had a specific reason for committing it. His story raises disturbing questions about decades of incarceration, prolonged isolation, violence behind bars, and the extraordinary lengths one prisoner was willing to go to change the circumstances of his confinement. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:20Speaker 00

  Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 545 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Give me how are you?

• 1:30Speaker 01

  You're a little slow on that. You're like, do I still want him as my partner?

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, I think about that every week, you know? And what are my options here? And I'm scared.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  That was too, come off too quick.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  What can I tell you? I'm quick.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Well, I was doing okay until that.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  Until that, now you're in a bad mood. I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. All right, buddy, we jump right in on these Thursday episodes. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  I am.

• 1:57Speaker 00

  We're talking about James Robertson. And this is a, you know, a case that has been in the news recently because James Robertson was just executed in Florida earlier this month, nearly two decades after killing his cellmate because he wanted to receive the death penalty.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Man, I mean, I guess if you don't want to be in prison for the rest of your life, which I don't know why anybody would want that.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  No, no. Especially depending on how old you were when you first went in to think that you're going to spend the next 60 years of your life in prison. Man, that's tough. That's tough.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  But, you know, the, the gears of justice, especially when it comes to the death penalty, they, they don't work quickly.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  And there's reasons behind that, but it took, you know, them 20 years to, to execute him. In 2018, James Robertson was interviewed for the Netflix show, I Am a Killer.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Well, that's a show you like.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  I do like that show. I watch it. He recounted his childhood growing up just outside Orlando. In his words, he had a pretty good childhood and he came from a lower middle-class family. You know, a lot of cases we do, people have jacked up childhoods, right? But not everybody had a, an Eileen Wuornos childhood.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Some killers, they grow up in good families. You know, their parents did everything they could to set them on the right path. For whatever reason though, you know, they, they chose to go a different direction.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  They made some bad decisions.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, to say the least, right? Robertson in junior high, he started skipping school, started hanging out in the streets, using drugs, partying with his friends. He experimented with marijuana, but also other hard drugs such as acid, PCP, and cocaine.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Well, that's like the smorgasbord of drugs.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Smorgasbord.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of people dabble with marijuana.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Right? I mean, now it's legal in a lot of places. But even when it wasn't, when we were growing up, I had a lot of friends who smoked. I just never quite cared for it. I'm not saying I never did. I just didn't like it a lot. I'll tell you what I didn't do was PCP. I'm not going to comment on some of the other ones, but.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll, I'll echo what you said.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  I didn't try that PCP.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  I always thought that was the one where people would go against the cops and like, it would take like six police officers to take somebody down because they had like superhuman strength or whatever. But Robertson was first arrested when he was only 12 years old. He was charged with shoplifting. According to him, he began stealing things like bicycles.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Maybe he was selling them. Maybe that was a way to make money. I don't know. I can't imagine you're just stealing bikes and you're lining them up behind your house. You know, just riding a different one every day.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Put them all like underneath the bridge or something and like, all right, want to buy a bike? Come on down here.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I mean, you know, for somebody whose family can't afford a bike and you're going to sell it to them for, I don't know, bucks, five bucks or something?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  That would be tempting.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  To a lot of kids.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  I don't know how hard it is to steal a bike anymore. I mean, it was.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  I don't know how hard it was ever.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Really? I mean, it has like a super, super chain on it.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you just jump on it and you pedal away.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  You know, that's it. That's the complexity.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  I don't know today, maybe they have alarms. I have no idea. I haven't ridden a bike in many, many years.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  A little tracking device.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  But I know when you and I were kids, there was nothing like that.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  No, and we, we all would just like, there's always those one kids that would park their bikes like with a kickstand and standing up. But most of us, we just throw it down. We just jumped off and let it, it stopped on its own and fell over.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Wherever it ended up, it ended up. Around the age of 16, he started breaking into places to get money for drugs. He broke into a business across the street from his house, stole a stereo, which he exchanged for drugs. He returned to steal speakers and that's when he was caught by security guards. And apparently there was some type of wrestling match and he attempted to get a knife out and stab the guards and run away. But he was overpowered and couldn't get to his weapon.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Got to watch out for those people that wrestle.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  Also people who have knives.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  It's a defecta.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  I know. The defecta? I do not believe that is a word. I've heard of trifecta. This is a defecta.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  A defecta.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  Which is two. I think you just made that up. But like I say quite a bit, this guy shares a lot of commonalities with you. I don't know why you share so many commonalities with a lot of the people that we talk about.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  I don't know either.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  You wrestle, you're walking around with a singlet, you're obsessed with knives.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Do you know how hard it is to hide your K-bar in a singlet?

• 7:39Speaker 00

  I would, I would assume pretty hard and also very dangerous.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Is that a, is that a K-bar or are you just, no, it's a K-bar?

• 7:49Speaker 00

  That very dangerous, I would think, to even try.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  So in 1980, shortly after his 17th birthday, Robertson was sentenced to 10 years in prison for burglary and assault. 17 years old.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  To get 10 years. And he started racking up additional charges while he was incarcerated, including attempted escape, battery on a law enforcement officer, and weapons charges. According to him, he earned more prison time for stabbings, fighting, and being involved in a riot. And I don't know that that's that unusual.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. And think, you know, going into prison that young, what kind of education you're going to get from the other men mates?

• 8:35Speaker 00

  And you're also probably going to be a target.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  You know, you're young. You got to stand up for yourself. But I think that's the other reason why it's probably not that hard to catch additional charges in prison. It is a very violent place.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  And you got to fight. People are all the time trying to fashion weapons, maybe not to hurt somebody, but for protection. But of course, if they use them, they're going to get an additional charge for that. He claimed that while incarcerated at Cross City Correctional Institution, he was falsely accused of killing an inmate, which added 15 years to his sentence.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  That would, that would hurt if you didn't have anything to do with it. Now you got another 15 years.

• 9:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, because, you know, let's break it down, right? You're 17 years old. You walk into prison with a 10-year sentence.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:35Speaker 00

  Well, you're probably not going to do the whole 10.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Right, you're going to be out at some point before that. But before that happens, you get 15 added on. So, all right, now you got 25. Even if you don't do the whole 25, you're still in there for much longer. And that could be tough.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  For anybody, I would think. And like you said, if he really didn't do it, okay, that would be horrible.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  If he did it, he deserves it. The Port Charlotte Sun reported that in 1997, Robertson was sentenced for attempted murder of another inmate in Bradford County. Prior to the 2008 killing, Robertson was not scheduled to be released until 2036.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  So he's in there to 2036 based on the reason he went to prison and the 15 years that he got for the other murder. And this is a third murder.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. So we didn't say it was in 2008. I just said it, right? But he said he was falsely accused of killing an inmate. But he was also put on long-term management, which is basically another term for solitary confinement. That, that's tough, I think, for a lot of people.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  Now, I'm sure there are some people who might be okay with it. You know, they're okay with being by themselves, maybe reading books or magazines or whatever it is, but for a lot of people, that could really drive you up a wall.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  I would not do well. That's too much isolation.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, in prison, I wouldn't do well either way.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  But here I'm okay with some solitary confinement.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  As long as I have my television, my Xbox, things like that. I'm okay being by myself, but.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  You don't have anybody tapping you on the shoulder a couple of times throughout the day. Hey.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Can you do this? Can you do that?

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  When speaking with producers of the show, I am a killer. Robertson was 54 years old and he had been in prison for 37 years. He said it was inhumane that while in close management, he sat in his cell all day. He witnessed other inmates being removed from close management, but he felt that prison staff would use any excuse to keep him there. 37 years is a long time.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  It's a really long time.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  But if he killed someone, then you know, he has to

• 12:12Speaker 00

  serve the punishment for, for what he did.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  I mean, think about that. He, at that point, 37 years, it's almost pretty close to double the amount of time that he lived outside of the prison.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's even more.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. He was only 17 when he went in. In the show, he explained that he had few privileges. He said, they took everything from me, like the TV. That's torture. You're locked in a cell all day. You might get to come out a couple of times a week for like two hours or something like that. And they'll put you in a little dog cage. You just lose all motivation. You ain't getting no sun, really.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they did that because of things you did while you were in there.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Right. But now he says he didn't do it. So that's the whole dichotomy here. He believed that the accommodations on death row would be better. In his words, he said, I got to the point where I said, fuck this shit. I'm going to death row. In 2008, Robertson was moved into a shared close management cell with inmate Frank Hart. 52 year old Hart was originally from Virginia. He was convicted of sexual battery in 1994 in Volusia County. According to the show, I am a killer. The crime involved a child, which we've discussed it many times, right?

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Hurting a child, sexually assaulting a child and all kinds of different things are looked down upon in prison. You could have murdered 20 people.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  And not be looked down upon in the same way that a rapist is or someone especially who hurts children.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  A child, yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  And this guy, according to the show, did that. Robertson decided he was going to kill his cellmate because he felt confident he could overpower Hart.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Well, that'd be step one, you know?

• 14:14Speaker 00

  You gotta size the person up.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  If you're gonna take them on. Now, I feel like you're in a cell with someone. You are so vulnerable. Whoever goes to sleep first, right, is extremely vulnerable.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Not even. I mean, what if you go to sleep last, but they wake up before you?

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah, I see what you're saying. Whoever is asleep, let's put it that way.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  I'd have to like find a way to sleep, but you still have one eye open.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Well, you're not at summer camp, okay, with your best friend.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  You are in a cell with one or more people who have probably done some pretty terrible things.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  And you're just sleeping in, you know, your bed next to this, or not next to, but below or above or, you know, depending on how many people are in the room.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  I think that's why a lot of people like the top bunk, because at least you can, might hear them coming up to get you. Instead of being down on the bottom bunk where, you know.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  I don't know, on the top, they could just grab you by the leg and pull you off.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  That's true, too.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Land hard.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is no, no good scenario.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  There is no good scenario, and that's why, you know, nobody really wants to go to prison.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  And why you should not do things that'll put you there. Robertson told the show, I am a killer. Believe me, it was premeditated all the way. On December 10th, 2008, James Robertson strangled Frank Hart to death with a garrot, or a garrot, depending on how you want to say it, made of socks. You gotta work with what you have.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got limitations in there for a reason.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Right. You don't have wire and two paintbrush handles to form a garrot or anything like that. Robertson recalled that he waited until the guard made his rounds past their cell. He said he had a 25 minute window of opportunity. He got behind Hart and nudged him to wake him up. He said to him, you gonna let me tie you up or am I gonna kill you? Hart replied, neither. Yeah, I don't know what you would. How are you supposed to answer that question?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Cause neither one of them is, is good. So they got into a struggle, but Robertson overpowered and strangled him. According to him, it took five to six minutes.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  I mean, doesn't sound like that long of an amount of time. I mean, for, for Hart, it probably was.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  Well, but you know, killers always say, stranglers, right? They always say it takes much longer than what you see in TV shows and movies.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  You know, they're not gonna wait six minutes of a, a TV show to show somebody strangling someone, but it can take that long.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, they're gonna, they're gonna fight you. They're gonna struggle.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  There's gonna be a lot of kicking, you know, a lot of weird noises.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  And this was such a strange interview for anybody who's seen the show or decides to watch it. Because after he said this, he, he kinda laughed.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  And he said, I don't feel bad about it. And you can tell he didn't.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Because he was a child killer?

• 17:39Speaker 00

  I know. I think it was more because he did not want to spend the rest of his life in prison.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  He wanted the death penalty.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Okay. So he felt good about it. It got him what he wanted.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  And maybe, maybe that was part of it, what you said, but I think it was more this, this other thing.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Robertson was removed from close management on the day of the murder. To authorities, it appeared that there was no provocation or fight beforehand. And the wild thing, Gibbs, is that Frank Hart was killed just eight days before his scheduled release.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, child killer, wouldn't he?

• 18:19Speaker 00

  No, I don't know. He hurt a child.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Oh, he hurt a child.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  I think it was a sexual.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Crime, which is horrible.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Horrible, yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  In and of itself, but if he had killed a child, I don't think he would have been getting out.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  Following Hart's death, Robertson was transferred to the state prison where he remained while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted an investigation. On June 11th, 2009, Robertson was charged with second degree murder, an offense not punishable by death.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  It's almost like they spited him. Like, we, we knew what he was trying to do.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Let's not give it to him.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, because this definitely seems to be first degree murder.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  You know, he's even admitting it later on. This was definitely premeditated. Now, maybe they thought, okay, there was some type of fight. They got into it and one person got overpowered the other and okay, it's not first degree, but according to an article by the Port Charlotte Sun, months before his death, Hart told a behavioral health specialist that he was fearful of his cellmate, claiming Robertson threatened to harm him if he walked too loud. Per court documents, Hart never forwarded those concerns to prison security, nor requested to be moved.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  In May 2011, Robertson contended that he was legally insane at the time of the murder. So I, this guy is weeks away, right, from getting out. I don't know how long this was going on before he was killed, but he obviously wasn't gelling.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  With Robertson in this small prison cell. You know, I'm gonna kill you if you walk too loud. There, it couldn't have been a good scenario.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  I mean, based on that line right there, your wife wouldn't last very long in prison.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  No, because she is a loud walker.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  She is.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  But. You know, I'm also not a killer or I would never harm my wife, but yeah, she is a loud walker.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  But in this case here, I mean, if someone said that to me, I'd always think I'd be on guard. Cause I'd be like, wait, I'm too loud? That's what you're saying? I walk too loud and if I keep it up, you're gonna kill me?

• 20:45Speaker 00

  Well, you're gonna be on guard anyway though, right? You are in prison.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  I think you're gonna be even on.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Even more so, right?

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  You're, you're raising the DEFCON level up.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  Right? After a comment like that, Robertson's attorney, Jay Brazil, argued in his notice of intent to raise an insanity defense that Robertson was placed in a high stress situation at the facility, which mentally overcame him and contributed to the defendant acting in a manner inconsistent with sanity. So what's he saying? That basically they put him in a position that he couldn't deal with.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  That he was ill-equipped to deal with, and that contributed to him not being sane at the time he killed this man.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  But doesn't that go against what he wants though? At the end of the day?

• 21:44Speaker 00

  Well, but they've already said that he can't, he can't get first degree, can't get the death penalty.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  So I don't know. I don't think this kind of worked out the way that he thought it would. But prosecutors sought an enhanced sentence through the state's reoffender sentencing laws. According to court records, Robertson had written several letters to the state attorney's office where he confessed to the killing and detailed how he committed the crime. So he wasn't shying away from it. He wasn't saying, well, I didn't do it, or I was provoked. It's, and it's because he was determined to get the death penalty.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Wanted it.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  I think as a, as an attorney, it would be hard to sit there with your client, you know, like, hey, so we can do this. You know, get this taken care of. Don't, that way you don't have to worry about doing all this extra time. And then your client be like, no, I want them to put me to death.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  But it's hard to defend somebody like that, right? They're not gonna go along with any of the different options that you put forth. In 2011, Robertson stabbed a prison guard and attempted to get the guard's keys. So he could kill another inmate, according to reports. The guard did not give him the keys. So Robertson was charged with attempted second degree murder in connection with this incident. He said he would be forced to kill again unless the court agreed to put him on death row.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Bound and determined.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  Well, what do you do with a guy like that? He, he basically is going to keep trying to kill people until he gets what he wants.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  And he wants to be on death row.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Sounds like he's gotta be placed in isolation 24/7, right?

• 23:40Speaker 00

  He can't be around other inmates and I don't know how you do that. I'm sure they have a way in prison to do that, but it's a very tough situation, right? You think about society, how do we function? Well, most people don't do things that are illegal because they don't want to face the consequences. That, and maybe they have a good moral compass, right? You like to think that as well, but there's also an element of, you know, you don't steal because you don't wanna get caught. You don't wanna, you know, serve time or have something on your record. But there is, I think for a lot of people in prison, something similar.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  You might be forced to do something, but you don't wanna catch extra charges.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Especially if you have a chance to get out one day, right? You're, you might go before the parole board or you know you're going to. So you wanna do the least amount of time possible. But here's a guy that's on the, the, the complete opposite end of the spectrum. He wants to go to death row and there's only one way to get there. And it's to get a first degree murder charge that is punishable by the death penalty.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he's a risk to everybody because he's the type of guy that as soon as you move him, he might try to jump a guard and, or another inmate or whatever, right? To hopefully, you know, for him, hopefully, he's trying to take it to the next level to catch that charge.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  Well, and let's face it, he has all day to sit around and plan or look at weaknesses or vulnerabilities and plot. He's got nothing else to do. On October 4th, 2012, Robertson pleaded guilty to first degree murder for the death of his cellmate. And I can imagine Gibbs, that was not hard to get him to do.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  I'm sure he's like, how'd you plead guilty?

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Uh, first degree murder? Yes, that is exactly what he wanted. The Florida Department of Corrections was instructed to prepare a pre-sentence investigation or PSI of James Robertson, which played a key role in his sentencing. The report was compiled by Mike Godfrey from the Department of Corrections. He sought to understand and obtain information about Robertson's background by interviewing. Godfrey told the show, I am a killer, that Robertson was cooperative. When speaking about his background, he said, violence is a part of James Robertson because violence was a part of his upbringing.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Oh, he knew kind of.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  Well, he described how Robertson was hit by, with switches by his parents. His parents also divorced and remarried. Now you and I have talked about this though. I was whipped with switches.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  And you were too.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  My parents also divorced and remarried. Now, there are different extents, right? To what punishment can go? Did I like being hit by a switch? No, I didn't. Nobody likes to be spanked. Was it all the time? No, it was when I did something that my grandfather didn't think I should have done.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  And he was old school and he'd make me go get my own switch and then he'd swap, he'd swap me with it and it hurt. But I, I guess I say that because there are a lot of people who go through certain things, right? In their childhood or who have gone through those things. A lot of people's parents have divorced. They don't go on to, you know, just do horrible things.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  But some do. I just wonder if, you know, we were professionals or the killers themselves. Sometimes look at that as kind of a, what?

• 27:48Speaker 00

  Almost a scapegoat type thing.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  An excuse?

• 27:51Speaker 00

  And they're, they're looking to blame someone or something.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they don't, they just don't wanna put it all on them directly.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  Or it, or take any of it.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Well, that's true.

• 28:02Speaker 00

  In some cases, Godfrey said his charges escalated from shoplifting at age 12 to burglary. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison just before he turned 17. We talked about that. Godfrey wondered if the courts could have gone another way and focused on rehabilitation since Robertson was a juvenile at the time.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I mean, that's a possibility at that younger age.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  You know?

• 28:28Speaker 00

  It is. I mean, it's, it's something to think about. In his PSI report, Godfrey recommended the death penalty. And I don't know how you really couldn't kind of taking everything into consideration, right? Obviously it's first degree murder. It was premeditated. He did it because he wanted the death penalty.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  If you don't give it to him, he's just gonna kill somebody else, right? At some point in time.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  He's gonna keep trying until you do give him what he wants. Or you lock him away somewhere by isolation for 24/7 until he dies at old age.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  Which I, I don't even know is possible. I don't know how you do that where he's not interacting with guards or something. On December 18th, 2012, a judge sentenced Robertson to death. When issuing the sentence, Judge Christine Greider said the court weighed a number of factors prior to making the decision, including Robertson's long criminal history. Greider also took into account his childhood, which she said was mired by violence and drug use. She felt that Robertson would never have a chance at a normal life.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  No, he's been in prison more than he's been outside of prison.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, and he, he's also a guy who is actively trying to get the death penalty.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  That, that's not a person who you could say has a chance to be, you know, a productive member of society or can lead a normal life. Cause most people just don't think like that.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:14Speaker 00

  According to the Port Charlotte Sun, which reported on details of the sentencing hearing, Robertson told investigators and medical experts after the murder of Frank Hart that he gave Hart two options, torture and death, or just straight death. Hart pleaded for his life, screaming for help from his cell before Robertson strangled him with a pair of socks.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Okay, you just want plain death or you want some torture and death?

• 30:44Speaker 00

  I, it's not a good choice to have to make.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Neither one is great.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  I, I feel like in that environment, maybe if you pick torture, you have a chance of being rescued.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, or maybe a chance to see an opening where you can fight back or, or something like that. But I think it just kind of, it just shows you. He woke this guy up, said, hey, are you gonna let me tie you up? The guy says, nope. And he said, okay, what do you want? Torture and death or just straight death? He was intent on killing this man and then hoping to get the death penalty. There's just no doubt about it.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, this is his way out of his, of his curtain, out of his current situation.

• 31:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's what he thought.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Robertson had become depressed and he spent most of his time in close management, living apart from other inmates and felt that he had nothing to live for. Given the circumstances and his past, Judge Greider said the death penalty was not disproportionate with his request and sentenced him to death.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, part of me feels like, you know, the judge knows this is what he wants. And you don't want to reward that type of behavior. But if you don't, are you not putting your own guards and even other inmates at risk? Because he'll keep, you have to assume he'll keep doing this until he gets what he wants.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know why you would think any other way.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:25Speaker 00

  This is a guy who said, I want the death penalty. Why would you not think he's going to keep hurting people until somebody ultimately gives him what he wants? I am a killer interviewed Corrections Nurse Anne Atwell, who described how death row differs from close management. She explained that the rules and regulations of death row are simple. She described the difference between death row and close management as going from the slums to Beverly Hills. That's a kind of an interesting perspective.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  Apparently death row inmates in Florida, they have a TV. They have their own bedspread if they choose. They get different food. They have their own nurse and they have their own quiet exercise area.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Bedspread, huh?

• 33:18Speaker 00

  She added, surprising enough, they have this camaraderie with one another that they're all there together. And so death rate row for them is a safe haven. But the other thing is in their mind's eye, they know they're not going to be executed tomorrow. They know that they're going to be there for maybe 25 years.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  So they know they're not going to be going any place but the row. They've come home and that's how the majority of them look at it. They love death row.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Kind of like their own apartment complex.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Well, when you think about it, would you rather be in a situation where you're isolated? Now, he wasn't at the time of the killing, he was with somebody else in the cell, but he spent a lot of time in isolation. He, he said it, right? No TV, just not much to look forward to. On death row, you're getting apparently better food. You have your own television, not just a communal television.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  And it sounds like people there were pretty good to each other because they were all in the same boat.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Nobody trying to kill anybody else.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Why would you? Everybody's gonna die. So, uh, you know, what's there to fight about? On July 10th, 2014, the Florida Supreme Court decided that Robertson's public defenders would not be allowed to withdraw as his counsel. Counsel representing Robertson pointed out that he wanted to be executed and wished not to appeal, citing rules by the Florida bar requiring lawyers to abide by their client's decisions. His counsel sought to withdraw, withdraw.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  From Boston. I like these apples.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  Where did that come from?

• 35:08Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  They sought to withdraw to avoid allegations of violating ethical responsibility to the counsel's client. But in a four, three decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Robertson's current counsel must continue to represent him. So that it's an interesting thing.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Right? He wanted the death penalty. He got the death penalty. He certainly doesn't want to appeal that sentence. He doesn't want it overturned, but yet he has court appointed attorneys who are required to fight for him.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  And they're like, why are we doing this? He doesn't want us to do this.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  And the Supreme Court says, don't care.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Still have to do it.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  You still gotta do it. Justice Barbara Parente wrote that the American Bar Association standards for criminal justice and guidelines for the appointment and performance of defense counsel in death penalty cases specifically explain that a defendant's stated desire to plead guilty or be executed cannot form the basis for an attorney's competent representation, representation of the defendant. Justice Charles Kennedy dissenting wrote that the majority's decision unjustifiably infringes on Mr. Robertson's right to make the fundamental decision of whether to pursue the appeal of his death sentence,

• 36:40Speaker 00

  as well as his right to a lawyer who will follow the ethical imperative to abide by Mr. Robertson's decision concerning the objectives of representation. So I get it. There, there wasn't a full agreement and there very rarely is, right? Whether it's the, the Florida Supreme Court or a state Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court. But it's interesting to kind of read these and look at how the court views certain things and how they rule. This guy's saying that he should have the right to say, I don't want to appeal. This is what I want. Yeah, I'm fine with it.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  I'm happy.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, good. Don't spend any more money on me.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  But he was a dissenting vote. He didn't, you know, he wasn't on the winning side. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed Robertson's conviction in death sentence in 2016. On October 1st, 2026, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant for James Robertson. His execution was scheduled for October 13th. As noted by NBC, Robertson's execution, the first in Florida since the Krista Pike execution, comes at a time of escalating attention on the death penalty in the United States. The Pentagon also announced earlier this month

• 38:09Speaker 00

  that it would livestream the firing squad execution of the Fort Hood shooter, Nadal Malik Hassan. Because of the timing, Robertson's execution was compared to the failed execution of Krista Pike in Tennessee on September 30th. Before Robertson's execution, Florida Department of Corrections spokesperson Jordan Kirkland said the process would be humane and dignified. And whoa, the Krista Pike debacle.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Was huge.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  It was.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Right? Especially if, if you're a person who is against the death penalty. I mean, you're looking at that and saying, that's part of the reason why I'm against it.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Cause of the way it's, it's carried out. Kirkland also said Florida has a sound lethal injection process and protocol. So basically what's he saying? Hey, we're not Tennessee here.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  It kind of exactly what they're saying.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  We know how to do.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, we got this.

• 39:08Speaker 00

  And to be fair, Florida does execute quite a few people. Florida and Texas are up there, right? As far as the number of executions. 63 year old James Robertson was pronounced dead at 12:32 PM on October 13th, 2026 at Florida State Prison. He was the 17th inmate executed by the state this year.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  17 people.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  That's a lot.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  Seems like a lot.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  It does.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  I mean, it's almost what one and a half per month.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  His final meal was steak, potatoes, fried eggs, toast and milk. And he visited with a pen pal and his cousin. All right. I, I don't need toast. I don't need milk for sure.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  But you know, I like steak. I like steak and potatoes.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  You do.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  I do like fried eggs, although that probably wouldn't be a part of my final meal.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  I don't think so either for me.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  But I don't think they, they get, you know, it's not like the old days where you can order 16 cheeseburgers and a bucket of fried chicken, right? I mean, we've read some.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Crazy stuff.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Wild, wild last meals. I think they're pretty, I know very state by state. Some states, you just get whatever the other inmates are eating that day.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't get an option. Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  But I'm, I'm sure the other inmates were not eating steak and potatoes and fried eggs. I can't imagine.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  I'd like, they'd be like, you get some Johnny Marzetti and a glass of milk. I don't know if you know what Johnny Marzetti is, but that was what.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  I do. I attended school.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Why did they call it Johnny Marzetti?

• 40:51Speaker 00

  I don't know. That would be great. I wish somebody could answer that.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  I mean, different people call it different things, but I've heard it called that.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Pretty much my entire life.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  And never understood the meaning of it at all.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  When asked if he had any words, he said, nah, I'm straight. I think he was ready for this.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  He's like, finally.

• 41:13Speaker 00

  And.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  Check out it here.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  This is such a bizarre case. A Gulf Coast news anchor who witnessed the execution noted that Robertson picked his head up and smiled at all the witnesses. He was pronounced dead 10 minutes later after being injected with a three-drug cocktail, including a sedative, paralytic and a drug to stop his heart per NAP report. And I think that's pretty universal, right? In the lethal injection process, it's usually three drugs, a sedative, a paralytic, and then something to stop the heart. Frank Hart's daughter Rebecca spoke to the media outside the prison after the execution and talked about the impact her father's death had on her.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  She said, when someone you love is taken from you in such a violent way, the world keeps moving, even when a part of yours feels like it is stopped. Other people go on with their lives, but you carry your loss into every tomorrow. She added that she hoped Robertson's death would bring her family closure. She said, I'm just praying that it does bring our entire family, at least a sense of that. He's gone. He's no longer there. He's not looming.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  This looming dark cloud, right? Over our head anymore.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  And I get, I understand what she's saying. She's talking about her father's impact or the impact of her father's death. Hard not to go back and think about the impact of the people he hurt.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Well, true.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  On, on their family. I, I get it. She didn't do anything wrong.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  This is her father. She's right to feel however she feels.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  And if you, I mean, think about it, you know, the courts gave him the sentence that they felt he deserved and he was on his way out. What, seven days or something like that?

• 43:10Speaker 00

  Eight days?

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Seven, eight days.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Hard, hard.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  He would have been back with his family.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  Uh, in eight days or whoever, I don't know what family he had. If, um, you know, James Robertson had not killed.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Did what he did.

• 43:27Speaker 00

  As we wrap this one up, I just thought this was such a wild, strange story because you have a guy, did he have a bad childhood? Yeah, maybe, but was it all that different from what we learned of, uh, certain aspects that a lot of us went through?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Didn't, didn't seem so.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Like it. Now, he, you know, he got into drugs, which quite a few people do.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  I think like you said, he did make a lot of bad decisions. How much of that was influenced by his childhood? I don't know. Was he just trying to put all the blame on that? Maybe. But I mean, how many times have we heard of someone who has not a life sentence, right? A sentence that they're going to be paroled from, meaning they're not going to serve the entire thing.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:23Speaker 00

  And then they make the decision that they're going to kill as many people as they have to, to get the death penalty so that they can be moved to death row, ensuring that not only did they never get out of prison, but they're, they're going to be put to death at some point.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  But it was, you know, 20 years or so before it happened.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. Yeah.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  Which they know that going in, it, it takes quite a while to actually execute someone. I think in his mind, he just thought that, well, if it's 10, 15, 20 years, whatever it is, I'm going to be happier on death row than I am being kept in this close management or solitary confinement situation.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Well, he gets a custom blanket, a bigger TV and, you know, better meals.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Well, he didn't have any TV.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Well, that's true.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  They, when he was in solitary confinement. So, um, no doubt it does sound like it's a better situation, although you are going to be put to death, most likely at some point.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  At some point.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  So that, that part is not good, but they are treated a little bit better. I mean, the, the staff even said that.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Which is bizarre. Why are they treated better? Why are they the same?

• 45:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't know why it's different or better or not sure. But, uh, yeah, I just, I, and this story kind of grabbed me just because of that really strange part of it where he consciously made the decision, I'm going to kill someone so that I can get to death row. But that's it for our episode on James Robertson and, uh, another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  And Gabby.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.