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Thread: Jermaine Alexander Foster - Florida Death Row

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    Jermaine Alexander Foster - Florida Death Row




    Summary of Offense:

    Gerard Booker accrued gambling debts and decided to commit robberies to pay for his losses. On November 28, 1992, Booker enlisted the aid of Jermaine Foster and Alf Catholic to carry out the robberies. Armed with a .38-caliber handgun, a 9-millimeter handgun, and an Uzi-type automatic weapon, the trio went to an area of Auburndale, Florida known as “The Hill” and approached three unknown men who were selling drugs out of their truck. After forcing the victims to remove their clothing and lie on the ground, Foster, Catholic, and Booker stole the victims’ cash, jewelry, crack cocaine, and truck. Foster and Catholic sold some of the stolen drugs, but the proceeds were not enough to cover Booker’s gambling losses. The group of Foster, Catholic, Booker, and Leondra Henderson, who had joined the group after the other three robbed the drug dealers, decided to find a local drug dealer and rob him as well.

    The group left in the stolen truck, carrying the guns used in the previous robbery. When the group was unable to find the intended victim, they drove to Osceola County to visit a girlfriend of Catholic and find other victims to rob. At the house of Catholic’s girlfriend, Foster, Booker, Catholic, and Henderson decided to accompany Catholic’s girlfriend and some of her friends to the Palms Bar in St. Cloud, Florida. Catholic and Foster rode with Catholic’s girlfriend, while Henderson and Booker followed in the stolen truck. During the drive to the bar, Foster and Catholic drank liquor and smoked marijuana. When the group stopped for gas, they noticed that the truck had a broken fan belt that was causing the truck to overheat. Booker stated that they would have to steal another car for the return ride home. While at the Palms Bar, Foster, Booker, Catholic, and Henderson found a group of three men and a woman that they targeted to rob.

    The plan was to follow the group and rob them as they left the bar in a Nissan Pathfinder. Foster told his coconspirators that if the victims did not have any money, he was going to kill them. In order to get the Pathfinder to stop, Catholic, who was driving the stolen truck, rammed the Pathfinder. When the occupants came to inspect the damage, they were ordered at gunpoint to give up their money. When they responded that they had no money, the victims were forced back into the Pathfinder, where Foster held them at gunpoint and Booker drove the Pathfinder. Henderson and Catholic followed in the stolen truck. When the stolen truck again experienced mechanical problems in the outskirts of Kissimmee, Florida, Catholic drove the truck off the main highway and to a vacant field, with Foster and Booker following in the Pathfinder. All four of the victims were ordered out of the Pathfinder, and the woman was separated from the three men. The men were ordered to remove their clothes, and Foster had the men place their underwear and hands on their head and lie face down on the ground. Foster then shot two of the men in the head, killing them instantly. He shot the third man, but the man’s hand, which was on his head, stopped the bullet from killing him, although he pretended to be dead. Foster approached the woman to kill her, but Booker prevented Foster from doing so. Foster, Booker, Henderson, and Catholic left in the Pathfinder, which they later tried unsuccessfully to dispose of in a lake. Foster, Booker, Henderson, and Catholic were tried together for the crimes.

    Foster was sentenced to death in Orange County on July 25, 1994.

    Co-defendant information:
    Booker, Henderson, and Catholic were also indicted for the same crimes as Foster. Henderson entered into a plea bargain and pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder in exchange for testimony in state and federal trials. He was sentenced to two concurrent life terms for the murder charges and fifteen years for the attempted murder charge. Booker pled guilty to all charges and Catholic was found guilty of all charges. Booker and Catholic were both sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder charges and twenty-seven years imprisonment for the other charges.

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    Factors Contributing to the Delay in Imposition of Sentence:

    The 3.850 Motion was pending from 01/16/98 – 07/08/02, and the 3.850 Motion for Rehearing was pending from 07/22/02 – 06/20/03.

    Case Information:

    Foster filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 08/19/94, citing eleven errors, which primarily focused on aggravating and mitigating circumstances and the inappropriateness of the death penalty as a potential punishment. The FSC affirmed Foster’s convictions and sentences on 07/18/96.

    Foster filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on 12/03/96 that was denied on 03/17/97.

    Foster filed a 3.850 Motion with the Circuit Court on 01/16/98 and amended the Motion on 06/01/00. On 07/08/02, the Circuit Court denied the Motion. On 07/22/02, Foster filed a Rehearing Motion that was denied on 06/20/03.

    Foster filed a 3.850 Motion Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 07/24/03, raising the following issues: ineffective assistance of counsel, Ring and Atkins claims, and witness bias. On 03/23/06, the FSC affirmed the denial of the motion.

    Foster filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the U.S. District Court, Middle District, on 05/15/06 and amended the petition on 06/06/06. The petition was denied on 02/19/10.

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Gov. Scott reassigns 2 more capital murder cases from 9th Circuit

    TALLAHASSEE -- Governor Rick Scott exercised his executive authority to reassign capital murder cases again on Aug. 30, reassigning two cases away from the state's Ninth Judicial Circuit and State Attorney Aramis Ayala.

    Following the pattern he established previously when he reassigned the Markeith Loyd case away from Ayala, the cases designated for reassignment on Aug. 30 will go to the Fifth Judicial Circuit and State Attorney Brad King.

    Scott issued two executive orders to convey the reassignments. Executive Order 17-231 relates to the ongoing case of convicted murderer Jermaine A. Foster, who was convicted of two counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted first degree murder, and four counts of kidnapping in 1994. With regards to Foster, King will handle a pending motion for "postconviction relief" filed by Foster.

    Executive Order 17-232 assigns King the task of handling pending prosecution for Robert Joseph Cardin. Cardin was indicted by the Ninth Circuit grand jury for two counts of first degree murder with a firearm related to the deaths of Cardin's mother, Martha Cardin, and his brother, Steven Cardin, in May 2017.

    In March 2017 then-newly elected State Attorney Ayala announced that she would not seek the death penalty in any cases that came before the Ninth Circuit. Her unilateral announcement prompted Gov. Scott to use his authority to reassign cases to move capital murder cases to the Fifth Circuit.

    http://www.baynews9.com/content/news...eassigns_.html
    "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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    Florida Supreme Court rules on death row appeals from 2 notorious Central Florida killings

    By Jeff Weiner
    Orlando Sentinel

    The men convicted in two of Central Florida’s notorious murder cases — the rape and killing of an 11-year-old girl in Mascotte and the carjack-killings of two people in Osceola County — both lost bids to get off death row Friday in a pair of decisions by the Florida Supreme Court.

    However, the state’s high court granted one of the men, Jermaine Foster, a new hearing to determine whether he is mentally disabled to the degree that his execution would be unconstitutional.

    Foster, now 45, was convicted of first-degree murder the Nov. 29, 1992, slayings of Anthony Clifton, 20, and Anthony Faiella, 17. Investigators said Foster was part of a gang of crack dealers from the Polk County town Auburndale who carjacked four friends at The Palms Bar, a late-night lounge near St. Cloud.

    Foster forced Clifton, the teenager and a third victim, 22-year-old Mike Rentas, to strip, cover their heads with underwear and lie on the ground, before shooting them, detectives said.

    Rentas survived by playing dead after being shot in the hand. Clifton's 26-year-old girlfriend was released unharmed.

    In Friday’s opinion, the state Supreme Court found that Foster is due a hearing on his mental capacity. A judge had previously ruled that Foster didn’t meet Florida’s criteria for intellectual disability, but the U.S. Supreme Court later struck down those criteria.

    According to the opinion, Foster has an IQ of 75 — state law used to require a score below 70 for all intellectual disability claims, which was ruled unconsitutional — and friends and family are prepared to testify to his “adaptive deficits” as a child.

    However, the court refused to reduce his death sentence to life in prison. His lawyers sought that due to a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating Florida’s death penalty laws, which until then required only a majority of jurors to recommend execution.

    Foster’s jury unanimously recommended the death penalty, and his death sentences were finalized prior to the cutoff for new appeals based on the 2016 decision, according to Friday’s opinion.

    Another convicted killer’s plea to be spared execution failed on similar grounds: James Duckett, now 61, will remain on death row for the 1987 slaying of fifth-grader Teresa McAbee.

    Duckett, at the time a rookie police officer in Mascotte, was accused and later convicted of raping and killing the girl, who had disappeared after leaving home to buy a pencil from a nearby store May 12, 1987. Her body surfaced in Knight Lake the next morning.

    Though a key element of the state’s case — an FBI agent's since-discredited testimony that a single hair found in the girl’s underwear matched Duckett’s hairs — has come into question, the appeal rejected Friday was focused on the 2016 Supreme Court decision.

    His jury’s vote for execution was eight to four, but his sentence became final in 1990, more than a decade before the 2002 cutoff that Florida’s high court has set for reconsidering such cases.

    https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...228-story.html
    "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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