Jerry White

Jerry White (February 12, 1948 – December 4, 1995) was executed by electric chair by the state of Florida in 1995 for the murder of James Melson, a shopper in a grocery store that White robbed in Orange County in 1981. White's execution was noteworthy due to witnesses reporting that White had an unusual reaction to the electricity. Later two separate death row inmates, Phillip Atkins and Thomas Harrison Provenzano, would attempt to use White's execution as evidence that Florida's electric chair was malfunctioning and subjected death row inmates to cruel and unusual punishment. Early life Jerry White was born on February 12, 1948, in Quincy, Florida. White grew up in an environment of poverty and instability. He never met his biological father, and his stepfather, a sharecropper, was murdered when White was a child. White's mother, Mabel Pinkins, worked as a maid and was rarely home during White's childhood. White began drinking alcohol when he was a teenager. When he was 14, he was arrested for the first time for burglary. He was sentenced to serve one year in a reform school in Marianna, Florida, where he reported being beaten. Following his release, White's mother noted that his personality suddenly changed and that he seemed "quiet and withdrawn for a long, long time." He began drinking alcohol when he was 15. White subsequently dropped out of school and developed an addiction to heroin. Prior to the crime for which he was executed, White accumulated a long history of arrests for crimes including attempted murder, robbery, larceny, and burglary. In 1977, White was convicted of three counts of robbery and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released from prison in March 1980, a year prior to the robbery of the Alexander Grocery Store. Overall, prior to 1981, White had accumulated nine felony convictions. Also prior to the murder, White was engaged to marry a woman named Pauline Forster.