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Thread: Death Penalty Pursued for McKinsie Alexander Lyons in 2018 FL Murders of Alexis Martinez and Juanita Donna Solorzano

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    Death Penalty Pursued for McKinsie Alexander Lyons in 2018 FL Murders of Alexis Martinez and Juanita Donna Solorzano





    September 13, 2018

    After 9 months on the run, police arrest man wanted for murdering two people, unborn child in Ruskin

    By Mary Stringini
    ABC Action News

    CARROLL COUNTY, KY — After nearly 9 months on the run, authorities in Kentucky arrested a man wanted for the murder of two people and an unborn child in Ruskin.

    On Wednesday, McKinsie Alexander Lyons, 39, was located and arrested in Carroll County, Kentucky. A warrant for Lyons arrest was issued in February for two counts of first-degree murder, murder of an unborn child, burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery and felon in possession of a firearm.

    Detectives say that on January 24, 33-year-old Juanita Solorzano and 24-year-old Alexis Martinez were found dead inside a residence on 14th Avenue SE in Ruskin. Both died of gunshot wounds, according to the medical examiner. Investigators say that Solorzano was pregnant when she was murdered, her unborn child did not survive.

    On January 29, detectives arrested Lyons Samona Louise Ramey, 42, who is also facing two counts of first-degree felony murder with firearm-discharge. She remains in jail without bond.

    Lyons was taken into custody by the Kentucky State Police without incident on Wednesday. He will be extradited back from Kentucky to Hillsborough County.

    No additional information has been released at this time.

    https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/r...hild-in-ruskin
    Last edited by Steven; 09-24-2022 at 04:57 PM.

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    Hillsborough state attorney to seek death penalty for man accused of 2 Tampa slayings

    Damien Marshall is accused in the separate stabbing deaths last year of two women in Tampa.

    By Dan Sullivan
    Tampa Bay Times

    TAMPA — Hillsborough prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a man they’ve accused of committing two separate murders last year in Tampa.

    Damien Marshall faces two counts of first-degree murder for the Sept. 27 stabbing of Linda Harris and the Nov. 2 stabbing of Jenny DeLeon. Court records and testimony indicate that DNA and other evidence linked Marshall to both crimes.

    A written notice filed in Hillsborough Circuit Court last week states that if Marshall is found guilty of the crimes, prosecutors will ask a jury to recommend a death sentence.

    The notice lists aggravating circumstances that the state says apply to both murders. They include that Marshall was convicted of a prior felony, and that the killings were especially “heinous, atrocious or cruel.”

    “We’ve sought death in the rare case that constitutes the worst of the worst murders in our community,” Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said in a statement. “Marshall is a convicted sex offender who brutally murdered two people in two separate incidents within the same month.”

    Marshall, 40, remains jailed without bail. His next court date is set for June 22. At a bail hearing in March, his public defender admitted that Marshall had sex with the victims, but questioned whether the state had enough evidence to prove that he was guilty of killing them.

    Both women were homeless and had made money through prostitution, according to court records.

    A construction crew found Harris, 54, dead in a house that was set to be demolished at 1806 E Sligh Ave. A detective later testified that she had been stabbed close to 60 times.

    About six weeks later, someone called 911 in the early morning to report that someone was lying on the ground, covered in blood, beside a house that was being remodeled at 8510 N Ninth St. The home is about two miles from where Harris was murdered.

    Officers arrived and found DeLeon, 25, who had also been stabbed. An unidentified witness, who’d been staying in a nearby home, told police he awoke to the sound of a woman screaming, “please stop, it hurts.” The witness grabbed a crowbar and walked outside. He saw DeLeon lying face-down, motionless, and a man standing over her.

    The witness said the man told him “this has nothing to do with you.” He quoted the man saying “that ho owes me an ounce of heroin, that ho owes me an ounce of crack,” according to an arrest report.

    The witness said the man left after he threatened him with the crowbar.

    When detectives retraced DeLeon’s whereabouts before she was killed, they found surveillance video that showed her with a man. Police used facial recognition software to identify the man as Marshall.

    When detectives questioned him, Marshall admitted he’d paid DeLeon for sex, according to court testimony. But an arrest report states that he claimed an unidentified man approached while they were together and remained in the yard after he left. He denied that any violent act occurred and said DeLeon was still alive when he left.

    Marshall also acknowledged he’d been with Harris the night she was killed.

    Phone records placed him near the murder scenes around the time of both killings, police said.

    Investigators searched Marshall’s home on Armenia Avenue in Tampa. They retrieved a Mickey Mouse belt on which they identified blood. Investigators identified Harris’ DNA on samples from the belt, according to an arrest report.

    Tests identified Marshall as a possible contributor to DNA that investigators identified on DeLeon’s fingernails, the report states.

    Marshall’s is one of five cases in which Hillsborough prosecutors are seeking a death sentence. The others are:

    Howell Emanuel Donaldson III, who is accused of four separate murders that occurred in the fall of 2017 in Tampa’s southeast Seminole Heights neighborhood.

    McKinsie Lyons, who is accused of killing a man and a pregnant woman during a 2018 home invasion robbery in Ruskin.

    Steven Lorenzo, who is serving a 200-year federal prison sentence on drug-related charges, but awaits a state murder trial for the 2003 killings of two men at his Seminole Heights home.

    A unanimous jury last year recommended a death sentence for Tyrone Johnson, who was found guilty of the 2018 shootings his girlfriend and her 10-year-old son in Tampa. Johnson still awaits official sentencing by a judge.

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/...ampa-slayings/

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    Court weighs if Tampa rapper’s jury should be unanimous on death penalty

    State law now allows death by a jury vote of 8-4. Courts disagree whether the new law can apply to pending cases

    By Dan Sullivan
    Tampa Bay Times

    TAMPA — If Billy Adams III is found guilty of murder, should Hillsborough prosecutors have to convince 12 people that he deserves the death penalty? Or will eight be enough?

    A judge is weighing that question as lawyers and other Florida judges also grapple with what to do in the wake of the latest change to the state’s ever-evolving death penalty system.

    This spring, the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved a law that eliminated the requirement that juries be unanimous if they are to recommend the death penalty. The new minimum threshold is a vote of 8-4. Thus, even if four jurors vote for life in prison, a court can still impose capital punishment.

    But the question lingers: What to do with defendants, like Adams, whose cases were pending when the law changed? Should they be subject to the new 8-4 rule?

    Lawyers for Adams argued in a court hearing last week that the change would amount to an ex post facto law — a law that applies retroactively — which is explicitly prohibited in the U.S. and Florida constitutions.

    Assistant Public Defender Jamie Kane told a judge that the new law creates new pressure for the defense. Under the previous law, the defense only had to convince one juror that a life sentence was appropriate. Under the new law, they have to convince at least five.

    “That is a big difference,” Kane said. “Our burden has increased dramatically.”

    Hillsborough prosecutors responded that the new 8-4 standard was merely a procedural change in the law, and therefore it should apply to cases going forward, including Adams’.

    “Does this retroactively increase punishment for this crime?” Assistant State Attorney Lindsay Hodges said in the hearing. “The answer is no. ... The punishment is still death.”

    Hillsborough Circuit Judge Mark Kiser did not immediately rule on the issue.

    Florida for years was one of the only states in which the law did not require juries to be unanimous if they were to impose the death penalty. A bare majority of 7-5 for death was all it took.

    In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death penalty as unconstitutional. Thereafter, unanimity became the rule.

    Last year, though, outrage was widespread after a Broward County jury fell three votes short of recommending a death sentence for Nikolas Cruz, who shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

    In direct response to that came the push to lower the standard to 8-4.

    The change has affected cases all across the state. One notable example is that of Troy Victorino and Jerone Hunter. The codefendants were sentenced to death in 2006 in Volusia County — when the law required only seven jurors to vote for death. Their sentences were overturned after the state’s death penalty was struck down. Lawyers were in the middle of a new penalty trial for the pair last spring when the law shifted back to 8-4, ultimately halting the proceedings.

    An appeals court later ruled that the case should be subject to the new 8-4 rule. But that hasn’t settled the question.

    In July, a Polk County judge ruled that applying the new law to a pending case there would be unconstitutional.

    Hillsborough Circuit Judge Lyann Goudie cited the Polk County ruling in October when she similarly ruled against applying the 8-4 law in the case of McKinsie Lyons.

    Lyons is charged in a 2018 Ruskin home invasion robbery in which a man and a pregnant woman were killed. Facing death, he was weeks away from going to trial earlier this year when the law changed. The trial was postponed.

    In the Lyons case, like in Adams’, prosecutors argued that the new law was a mere procedural change. Goudie rejected that argument.

    In a written opinion, Goudie reasoned that the new law made a life sentence less likely. The change was a substantive one, the judge wrote, as it put Lyons at greater risk of a death sentence.

    “What if the Legislature amended (the law) to allow a death recommendation if at least six jurors determine a defendant should be sentenced to death?” Goudie wrote. “Five jurors? Four jurors? Three jurors? Two jurors? ... It would be ludicrous to argue that such a change would not substantially increase both the number of death recommendations and death sentences.”

    Adams’ defense echoed Goudie’s opinion in arguments before Judge Kiser.

    “The effort here by the Legislature is to have more people get the death penalty,” Kane said. “How do you do that? By reducing the state’s burden and increasing the defense burden. The fewer (jurors) they have to convince, the more they’re going to win death sentences.”

    The issue is one that the Florida Supreme Court will likely have to decide. The outcome could affect what happens in at least eight pending Hillsborough County death penalty cases, including Adams’.

    Adams, 26, is accused in the January shooting of 22-year-old Alana Sims, who was found dead on a roadside beside the SUV she was driving in a New Tampa subdivision. Her toddler son sat unharmed inside the vehicle. Sims was pregnant when she died. At least one witness told police that Adams was believed to be the father of the unborn child, according to court records.

    The killing occurred three days after Adams, a hip-hop artist known as Ace NH, was found not guilty in the fatal shootings of Trevon Albury and Daniel Thompson inside a Lutz recording studio. In his trial in that case, Adams testified that he'd killed the pair in self-defense because he believed they were about to rob the studio’s owner.

    Less than two weeks after he walked out of court, Adams was back in jail, accused of killing Sims.

    Handcuffed and clad in a red jail uniform, he sat in a jury box throughout last week’s hearing. He leaned forward and gazed at his attorney, appearing keenly interested in the arguments over his potential fate.

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/...ad-alana-sims/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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