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Thread: Florida Capital Punishment News

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    Florida Capital Punishment News

    Florida wasted little time trying to get executions back on track after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Kentucky can continue using lethal injection to carry out the death penalty.

    Attorney General Bill McCollum quickly sent paperwork to the U.S. Supreme Court asking for permission to go ahead with the execution of child killer Mark Dean Schwab, who the state was supposed to kill last November. Kentucky and Florida have nearly identical lethal injection procedures.

    Gov. Charlie Crist immediately asked for a list so he can pick who among the state's worst killers should now prepare to die.

    Crist will have plenty to choose from: There are 338 people on death row.

    The governor said he wants a list of five or so death row inmates who have served the longest or committed the worst crimes so he can sign his second death warrant since taking office in January 2007.

    "Justice delayed is justice denied and an awful lot of families of the victims have been waiting for justice to be done, and so that's certainly an important factor," Crist said. "But in addition, the heinous nature of the crime itself is important to consider."

    Gary Alvord has been on death row the longest. Last week marked the 34th anniversary of his arrival there after being convicted of killing three Tampa-area women.

    Schwab's case easily falls in the heinous category, and the governor will have to set a new date for his execution if the Supreme Court agrees Florida can resume lethal injections.

    Schwab was supposed to be executed last November for raping and murdering 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez in 1991. The boy was strangled or suffocated. He received his stay just four hours before his scheduled procedure. His death was held up while the U.S. Supreme Court considered the Kentucky case.

    McCollum said his belief that Florida's executions "are constitutionally sound has been upheld by the highest legal authority in the nation."

    Last year was the first since 1982 that there wasn't an execution in Florida. Gov. Jeb Bush placed a moratorium on executions as Crist was getting ready to take office. Bush called for a study of lethal injection after it took twice as long as usual - 34 minutes - for convicted killer Angel Diaz, 55, to die in December 2006.

    An investigation found the needles had been pushed through Diaz's veins into his flesh, reducing the drugs' effectiveness.

    Corrections officials responded by ordering more training and monitoring of its execution team. The new procedures also include a delay after the first chemical, the anesthetic sodium pentothal, is injected to make sure an inmate is unconscious before the other drugs are administered.

    The second chemical causes paralysis and the third stops the heart from beating, which can result in severe pain if a person is conscious.

    Critics of the three-drug system say the paralyzing drug is unnecessary and prevents an inmate from showing any sign of pain. Some have advocated using only sodium pentothal because it also is lethal in large doses.

    Crist lifted the moratorium when he signed Schwab's death warrant in July.

    The Florida Supreme Court rejected arguments about lethal injections from Schwab this year. His lawyers said the state Corrections Department execution team botched two of five training sessions using recently adopted procedures.

    Schwab's lawyers also contend that during the exercises, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement official who is supposed to monitor the mixing of lethal chemicals, was insufficiently trained.

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    Judge faced with difficult decision

    Earlier this month, by a 7-5 vote, a jury recommended that Emilia Carr be sentenced to death. If Circuit Judge Willard Pope follows that recommendation, statistics suggest the narrow vote would help Carr persuade the Florida Supreme Court to reduce her sentence to life in prison.

    Between 1972 and Dec. 31, 2000, there were 112 Florida death penalty cases in which juries voted 12-0 to recommend death. The state's high court affirmed the sentences 64 percent of the time.

    During the same time period there were 117 death penalty cases in which the jury recommendation for death was 7-5. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed 47 percent of them.

    The percentage of affirmed death penalties gradually increased with each additional vote (8-4, 9-3 and so on) in favor of death.

    “There is an inverse correlation: the more votes for death, the lower the chance it [the death sentence] is going to be reversed by the state Supreme Court,” said Michael L. Radelet, who provided the statistics. He's a criminologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who monitors Florida death penalty cases.

    Carr's court-appointed defense attorney plans to note this trend during her pre-sentencing pleas to the judge.

    “It's not a 6-6, but it's pretty close, so we [plan to] persuade the court that one vote should not weigh so significantly with him,” Candace Hawthorne said after the jury returned its recommendation.

    By law, Pope must give the jury's recommendation “great weight.” But he is not bound by it, and Radelet's research has turned up several cases of Florida judges imposing life sentences despite death recommendations.

    In January, the judge will convene a hearing at which the defense can present any remaining mitigation evidence. Pre-sentencing briefs are due Feb. 4. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 22.

    ■ ■ ■

    The jury found Carr, 26, guilty of helping her co-defendant boyfriend, Joshua Fulgham, kill Heather Strong.

    The victim was the mother of Fulgham's two young children. Fulgham awaits trial; the state is seeking the death penalty against him, as well.

    Prosecutors say Fulgham and Carr bound the victim to a computer chair inside a storage trailer behind Carr's mother's home in Boardman in February 2009.

    The pair then suffocated the 26-year-old victim after failing to break her neck, according to prosecutors. Carr gave a series of statements to detectives implicating herself in the murder.

    During the penalty phase of Carr's trial — after the jury had found her guilty of first-degree murder — State Attorney Brad King argued that the killing met the legal criteria for three aggravating factors: It was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel; it was cold, calculated and premeditated; and it took place during the commission of the separate offense of kidnapping.

    The defense emphasized Carr's lack of criminal history, her young age at the time of the crime, the sexual abuse that occurred in her childhood, and the fact she is a mother of four.

    The seven-man, five-woman jury deliberated two hours before returning a recommendation. Only one of those jurors could be reached for comment later. She was reluctant to discuss how the jury voted. She would only remark on the difficulty of the jury's task, and expressed regret that six young children were left motherless by Strong's death and Carr's conviction.

    Carr would be the first woman in Marion County to receive a death sentence since serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the early 1990s. Wuornos has since been executed.

    Carr would be just the second woman currently housed on Florida's death row.

    ■ ■ ■

    Florida is one of only two states among the 35 that impose the death penalty in which jury unanimity on sentencing is not required.

    While uncommon, trial judges' “overrides” of a jury's recommendation — either sentencing a defendant to death over a life recommendation or vice versa — are not unheard of.

    Radelet has identified 36 cases in Florida between 1992 and Dec. 16, 2010 in which a trial judge overrode a jury's death recommendation and instead imposed life in prison. He said the overrides were directly correlated to the number of votes favoring death.

    In other words: The death-to-life overrides occurred most frequently (13 times) in cases where a jury had recommended death 7-5. In only two cases were death-to-life overrides issued when the jury recommendation for death was a unanimous 12-0.

    None of those overrides occurred in the 5th Judicial Circuit.

    According to Radelet's research, the most common reasons for the death-to-life judicial overrides included mental illness of the defendant; questions about premeditation; proportionality of the death sentence; and evidence of an abusive childhood.

    “In almost all states, death is really reserved for the worst of the worst. And most states require 12 votes for death, so Florida really is an exception,” said Radelet, a former sociology professor at the University of Florida.

    “If [Florida] is going to have the death penalty, it should be reserved for the worst of the worst,” he said. “And the worst of the worst don't get 7-5 jury votes.”

    In 2007, a jury voted 10-2 to recommend death for John Couey, who kidnapped, raped and murdered Jessica Lunsford.

    In 2008, a jury voted 11-1 to give Renaldo McGirth a death sentence for the murder of a Villages resident during a home robbery.

    And in 2009, a jury voted 10-2 in recommending death for William Kopsho, who shot and killed his wife by the side of a road.

    Each of those men went on to receive a death sentence. Earlier this year, The Florida Supreme Court upheld McGirth's sentence. Kopsho's appeal is pending. Couey died on death row in 2009 before oral arguments in his appeal.

    In no other death penalty case in Marion County in the past decade has a jury returned a death recommendation by a 7-5 vote. The same is true for the entire 5th Judicial Circuit, which also includes Citrus, Lake, Sumter and Hernando counties.

    The closest case: Donte Jermaine Hall, who was convicted in a Eustis double homicide. In December 2009, a Lake County jury voted 8-4 to recommend death.

    King recently said he had no intention of backing down from his plans to pursue the death penalty against Carr, regardless of the jury's slim vote.

    ■ ■ ■

    Radelet said the high financial cost of the death penalty is one reason judges may impose a life sentence instead of death in the face of a slim jury recommendation.

    “With a 7-5 vote, there's a pretty good chance the Florida Supreme Court would be throwing [the sentence] out,” he said. “In this case, the judge might simply decide to save the state thousands and thousands of dollars an appeal would cost.”

    According to Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization Death Penalty Information Center, it costs up to as much as three times as much to house a person on death row than to keep someone in prison for 40 years — the approximate length of a life sentence.

    “The theory is [death inmates] will only be there a short time, but the reality is, they'll be there 15 or 20 years,” Dieter said. “Death row is a more expensive way to keep someone in prison per year than regular prison, because you need more supervision, single cells, meals brought to them, escorts. Everything is labor-intensive. It's an expensive form of incarceration.”

    Carr's sentencing marks the first time Pope, who was elected to the circuit bench in 2002, will be faced with the decision to impose the death penalty. Because of the rare 7-5 vote, he may be grappling with more than just the usual issues that have confronted his peers.

    “In almost every other state, that's not going to be a death sentence,” Dieter said. “But in Florida, the judge would just be going along with the recommendation. In other states, 7-5 would mean life and the judge couldn't do anything about it.

    “Legally, it's easier,” he continued. “But politically, it may be harder to override and give a life sentence when the jury's recommended death.”

    http://www.ocala.com/article/2010122...nt02?p=5&tc=pg

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    Bill would abolish death penalty in Florida

    The death penalty would be abolished in Florida under legislation filed Tuesday by Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda. The proposal (HB 4189) is yet to be assigned to any committees, and would appear to have an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

    The measure simply removes the provisions of state law settting the death penalty for capital offenses and all other laws related to it. The second term Democrat told The Tallahassee Democrat that while she's morally opposed to the death penalty, she thought outlawing it also makes financial sense.

    The high cost of the death penalty - because of required appeals and reviews - has been cited by opponents of capital punishment. Other opponents of the death penalty say it's problematic because of the number of people on death row who have been shown by DNA evidence brought to light after conviction to be innocent.

    "If we're interested in cutting budgets and costs, it seems to me that the death penalty is much more expensive than life in prison without possibility of parole," Vasilinda told the Democrat.

    http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog...enalty-florida

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    Florida's state attorney disputes bill ending capital punishment as budget cutting measure

    TALLAHASSEE – State Attorney Willie Meggs, preparing for a death-penalty sentencing in a grisly Big Bend case, today disputed state Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda’s argument that belt-tightening legislators could save millions by ending capital punishment in Florida.

    The second-term Tallahassee Democrat has introduced a bill abolishing the death penalty. She conceded it has virtually no chance of passing in the Republican-run Legislature, but she is morally opposed to execution and believes the current budget climate provides a good time for the discussion.

    The state faces a $3.6 billion revenue shortage and Gov. Rick Scott has proposed $5 billion in state spending cuts in his budget recommendations for the legislative session starting next Tuesday.

    “I don’t think cost is a factor we should look at, when we decide to seek the death penalty or not to seek it,” said Meggs. “It is reserved for the worst of the worst, and we carefully consider all the facts before seeking the death penalty.”

    Serial killer Gary Michael Hilton was convicted last month of kidnapping and murdering a Wakulla County woman, Cheryl Dunlap, cutting off her head and hands. He had been previously convicted and given a life sentence in a Georgia case, and the Leon County jury recommended a death sentence in the Dunlap murder.

    Meggs office is preparing for sentencing hearings by Circuit Judge James Hankinson. Hankinson can substitute life in prison without parole – which would be the maximum sentence if Rehwinkel Vasilinda’s bill were already law.

    “We send people to prison today for life without parole -- we’ll send a 23-year-old man to prison for life for committing an armed robbery with a firearm. Shouldn’t there be a distinction between the person who commits armed robbery with a firearm and a person who murders four people, a serial killer?”

    Rehwinkel Vasilinda, a lawyer who teaches law at Tallahassee Community College, said the death penalty has not been imposed or carried out fairly. Even if it were, she said, “this is just not something the state should be doing.”

    She denied that her bill is a “lost cause,” saying that many ideas are given now chance when introduced but gain strength over several sessions. She said she would like to get a discussion started on capital punishment and its alternatives.

    http://www.news-press.com/article/20...news|text|Home

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    Lawmakers target Florida Supreme Court

    Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon today called for a dramatic reshaping of Florida's highest court.

    Cannon, R-Winter Park, said the House will move forward with a series of constitutional amendments that would split the current seven-member Florida Supreme Court into two separate courts with five justices each. One of the new courts would focus on criminal justice cases, including death penalty reviews, while the other would be devoted to civil justice cases.

    If approved by the Legislature, the new court configuration would have to be endorsed by 60 percent of the state's voters in a constitutional referendum.

    Many of the details of the court proposal have yet to be worked out, including whether any of the seven current justices would be retained under the new court configuration or whether the move will give Gov. Rick Scott the option of replacing all of the justices and adding three new ones.

    “This is a thoughtful structural reform that I believe will improve the administration of justice, help unclog our civil dockets and help make sure our criminal justice system doesn't make mistakes,” said Cannon, who is a lawyer.

    Cannon said the changes will ensure that the courts “administer justice fairly and swiftly.”

    Currently, Cannon said both criminal justice cases, including death penalty review, as well as civil cases are being delayed because of backlogs caused by the court system's increasing workload.

    “More people are dying on Death Row of natural causes than of lethal injections now,” Cannon said. “So, clearly there is an efficiency problem on the criminal side.”

    On the civil side, Cannon said the surge of foreclosure cases has added to the court's burden.

    In other court-related measures, which would also require constitutional changes, Cannon said he wants all appellate judges to be subject to a 60 percent approval vote when their seats are up for a merit retention vote. Under the current system, where the governor appoints the appellate judges, the judges must win approval from 50 percent of the voters to retain their seats.

    Cannon said another House proposal would open up investigations of judges by the state's Judicial Qualification Commission, which probes allegations of misconduct by the judiciary. Under the existing system, the JQC reviews remain confidential unless the panel finds “probable cause” that a judge or justice violated an ethics standard.

    http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...NEWS?p=2&tc=pg

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    When's Governor Scott going to start signing some death warrants? Let's hope Florida hasn't ended up with another Governor Crist.

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    Hopefully soon. Florida has over 50 inmates who have exhausted all appeals.

    Cannon took a shot at Crist yesterday.

    And he took the opportunity to get a little dig in at Crist, by noting that he joined the Legislature under a governor he called a "principled conservative" -- former Gov. Jeb Bush -- and will leave the Capitol under a governor he called a "principled conservative -- new Gov. Rick Scott.

    Then, in a line not in the prepared remarks, he said: "And I’m going to do my best to forget everything about the years in between."

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    Legislation to speed up death penalty appeals clears House subcommittee

    A judiciary subcommittee today approved House Speaker Dan Cannon's plan to split the Florida Supreme Court in half in an effort to speed up death penalty appeals.

    Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, R-Orlando, said he was not criticizing the court. But he said at least 145 condemned killers have been on Death Row more than 20 years and 34 of them have been there 30 years.

    Eisnaugle, an attorney, said he checked 15 cases decided in the last six months of last year and found that the time from "perfection" of appeals to decision by the high court ranged from 367 to 874 days. And that's not the time from filing of an appeal, he said, but from the time all motions and filings are in and the court has everything it needs to consider a case.

    The proposal would add three justices to the existing seven-judge court, which would be divided into five-justice panels for civil and criminal appeals. Eisnaugle said civil appeals would also benefit from the division.

    "I am not saying the Florida Supreme Court is not doing everything it can to bring down its docket," he said. "My guess is they're burning the midnight oil every night of the week over there."

    Mayann Downs, president of the Florida Bar, said the court "is doing a very, very good job" with criminal and civil appeals. She said every appeal is different, and conscientious justices raise different points of law, so it's hard to say how long they should take.

    "We urge a cautious and careful, careful consideration about systemic changes," she said.

    Earlier, the House Justice Subcommittee approved a constitutional amendment requiring approval of appellate court appointees by the Florida Senate. Like the court reorganization, the amendment would require three-fifths votes of the House and Senate and 60 percent approval by Florida voters at the polls next year.

    http://www.news-press.com/article/20...news|text|Home

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    New team of 3 public defenders announced

    A team of three public defenders, led by Assistant Public Defender Steven Been, will take over the capital case load for the Second Judicial Circuit.

    The attorneys lack the death-penalty case experience required under the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, but Public Defender Nancy Daniels said Wednesday that her office will seek a deviation from the minimum standards, which is allowed under the rules in exceptional circumstances.

    Daniels said all three office attorneys — Been, Andy Thomas and Nicole Jamieson — are skilled in ongoing professional training and up to the task. She pointed out that Assistant Public Defender Ines Suber, who had been handling death penalty cases until she was reassigned this month, became capital-case qualified after being granted an exception to the criminal procedure rules to serve as lead public defender in the high-profile 2004 trial of Coy Evans.

    Evans, who was convicted of murder for the 2002 killing of Tallahassee Police Department Sgt. Dale Green, was spared the death penalty.

    Daniels said she made the decision to move Suber from capital cases to the office's appellate division before the trial of serial killer Gary Michael Hilton. In addition to Hilton's, Suber handled several other death-penalty cases over the last few years.

    "I saw the strain that was creating on her," Daniels said.

    During the Hilton case, Suber repeatedly asked the judge for more time to prepare, citing an overwhelming workload.

    As capital murder cases approach trial, Daniels said her office will file motions asserting that defendants will receive competent representation. The trial judges will decide if exceptions to the minimum standard rules should be allowed.

    Both Been and Thomas have been members of the Florida Bar since 1981. Jamieson was admitted to the bar in 2006.

    http://www.floridatoday.com/article/...yssey=nav|head

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    I hope this goes through.

    House panel OK's revamp of high court

    House Speaker Dean Cannon's latest push to revamp the Florida Supreme Court sailed through the House Judiciary Committee Thursday in a 12-6 vote along party lines - with Democrats ridiculing the measure as unneeded and chiefly a partisan payback.

    "What is the rush for this?" asked Rep. Richard Steinberg, D-Miami Beach.

    Cannon has been at odds with the court since last summer, when justices struck from the ballot three initiatives approved by the Republican-ruled legislature. But bill sponsor Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, R-Orlando, said the proposed overhaul is "about accountability and efficiency."

    The bill (CS/HJR 7111) would expand the current seven-member Florida Supreme Court to 10 members - but divide it into two divisions, civil and criminal. The approach is less sweeping than a larger court division initially proposed by Cannon and backs away from his earlier call for eliminating Judicial Nominating Commissions and giving the governor more autonomy in naming judges.

    The measure is aimed at the 2012 ballot, where at least 60 percent of voters would have to approve the change for it to become law.

    Supporters said the legislation includes state funding provisions designed to avert the cash crunch that this week threatened to shutter courtrooms statewide.

    But those representing Florida courts and lawyers said it needs more study, and several judges disputed an underlying premise of the proposal - that the Florida Supreme Court was failing to move swiftly on cases, including those involving the death penalty. First District Court of Appeal Judge Peter Webster testified that since 2001, the backlog of cases still pending before the court at year's end has been reduced 45 percent.

    Steinberg presented findings that showed far more death penalty challenges had been reviewed and decided by justices last year than in 2001.

    With fewer than 30 days left in the session, the Senate so far has shown no interest in the court overhaul.

    Still, Cannon may advance the proposal as part of his final deal-making with the Senate, on budget and other items.

    http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/st...t-1384323.html

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