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Thread: David Sylvester Frances - Florida

  1. #1
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    David Sylvester Frances - Florida




    Summary of Offense:

    David Sylvester Frances was convicted on October 29, 2004 for the murder of Helena Mills and JoAnna Charles. Helena Mills and JoAnna Charles were found dead in Mills’ home at 6:00 PM on November 6, 2000. Both women were strangled to death with an electrical cord. There were no signs of forced entry into the condominium. Mills’ automobile, some jewelry belonging to Charles, and a Playstation belonging to Mills’ son were also stolen from the scene. Male DNA was found under Charles’ fingernails, but could not be matched to either defendant due to the small sample size. No useable fingerprints were obtained from the electrical cord. Earlier that morning, David Frances and his younger brother Elvis Frances knocked on the door of Mills’ home and spoke with Mills’ son. They learned that Charles, a 16-year-old family friend living with Mills, was staying home from school that day due to illness.

    On December 5, 2000, Frances and his brother were detained in DeKalb County, Georgia following a traffic stop. Elvis was driving Mills’ stolen vehicle; David was a passenger in the same vehicle. During his first interview with Orlando police detectives, David claimed that Elvis killed both victims. David admitted to helping Elvis move the bodies and steal Mills’ car. Elvis stated in his interview that David participated in the murders. During his second interview with Orlando police detectives on December 6, 2000, David provided additional information regarding the murders. His mother wanted both David and Elvis to move out of the house. The brothers had no money and no car, so they planned to steal Mills’ car and drive to Tallahassee. David stated that he strangled Mills with an electrical cord. The brothers wrapped an electrical cord around Charles’ neck and each pulled on an end until she was dead. They then stole the jewelry, the Playstation, and Mills’ car, and pawned the stolen items. They drove to Tallahassee and then to Georgia in Mills’ car.

    Frances was sentenced to death in Orange County on April 29, 2005.

    Co-defendant information:
    The defendant’s younger brother Elvis Frances was sentenced to life in prison for the killings. He is not eligible for the death penalty as he was 16 at the time of the murders.

  2. #2
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    Factors Contributing to the Delay in Imposition of Sentence:

    The state attorney’s office did not exceed the acceptable timeframe.

    Case Information:

    On 5/20/05, Frances raised the following issues in a direct appeal: the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating factor should not apply to this case; the trial court improperly applied the prior violent felony conviction aggravating circumstance; the trial court failed to find that the mitigating circumstances outweighed the aggravating circumstances; and the death sentence was disproportionate. The appeal was denied on 10/11/07.

    On 03/05/08, Frances filed a petition for Writ of Certiorari with the United States Supreme Court which was denied on 05/13/08.

    On 04/09/09, Frances filed a 3.850 Motion in the Circuit Court. This motion is pending.

  3. #3
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    DAVID SYLVESTER FRANCES vs STATE OF FLORIDA

    DAVID SYLVESTER FRANCES vs MICHAEL D. CREWS, etc.

    In today's Florida Supreme Court opinions, the court AFFIRMED the trial court’s denial of Frances' petition for postconviction relief and DENIED his petition for habeas relief.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    On August 21, 2014, Frances filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/flo...cv01347/301201

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    Three death sentences vacated in Orange County

    Orange County prosecutors gave few answers Friday during the first death-penalty hearings since State Attorney Aramis Ayala announced that her office will no longer be seeking capital punishment for defendants.

    During the hearings, three judges vacated the death sentences of three men who were sentenced to death years ago without unanimous jury decisions: Derrick McLean, Sean Smith and David Frances.

    “Those will be assessed on a case-by-case basis,” Assistant State Attorney Ken Nunnelley said Friday, when Judge Bob LeBlanc asked whether his office intends to seek the death penalty again for Frances.

    Since the three men were sentenced, courts have ruled that Florida’s former practice of requiring only a majority of jurors to recommend the death penalty is unconstitutional. Jurors now have to be unanimously in favor of sending defendants to death row.

    Courts across the state have been vacating non-unanimous capital punishment sentences and preparing to give death-row inmates new proceedings in front of new juries, which will decide whether the defendants should be put to death or get life in prison.

    But those proceedings require prosecutors, and it is not clear whether attorneys from Ayala’s office will push again for capital punishment.

    Ayala last week was vague about how her office will handle the cases of 10 people sent to death row by non-unanimous juries.

    “I have absolutely no guidance on that issue,” Nunnelley said Friday, when Judge Julie O’Kane asked what his office plans to do in McLean’s case.

    In Smith’s case, Judge Marc Lubet cautioned prosecutors not to wait too long to come to a decision. “I don’t think I can allow the state to wait until the last minute,” he said.

    All three cases are scheduled for another status hearing in early May.

    McLean, now 39, was sentenced to death by a 9-3 jury vote for the murder of 16-year-old Jahvon Thompson during a home invasion in 2004. When a neighbor heard noise coming from the home and came to ask the family to keep quiet, McLean shot him in the back. The neighbor survived.

    Smith, who is also known as Dolan Darling and is now 40, was convicted of raping and murdering a 39-year-old woman named Grace Mlynarczyk in her apartment in 1996. A jury sent him to death row by a vote of 11-1 in 1998. At the time of the murder, Smith was 22 and a fugitive, having escaped from jail in the Bahamas.

    Frances and his younger brother, Elvis Frances, were convicted of strangling 41-year-old Helena Mills and her 17-year-old niece, Jo Anna Charles, in Mills’ home in 2000. Mills’ son, who was 13, found their bodies. David Frances, now 36, was sentenced to death by a vote of 9-3 on one count and 10-2 on the other. His brother, who was 16 at the time of the murders, was sentenced to life in prison.

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...321-story.html

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    July 24, 2017

    Sentence reduced to life in prison for 3 Orange County death row inmates

    wftv.com

    Death sentences in three long-running Orange County murder cases were thrown out Friday. The defendants will instead serve a life sentence in prison, unless State Attorney Aramis Ayala agrees to re-try the punishment portions of their cases and purse the death penalty a second time.

    The three defendants had asked to have their death sentences thrown out based on having been sentenced by a non-unanimous jury, in violation of a recent and partially retroactive ruling from the state Supreme Court known as the Hurst ruling.

    Derrick McLean was 27 years old at the time of his 2004 crime. He was convicted of killing 15-year-old Jahvon Thompson during a home burglary, originally meant to net either cash or marijuana for McLean, a cousin of his, and an acquaintance. A jury voted 9-3 to sentence him to death.

    David Frances was 20 years old when he killed Helena Mills, a family friend who he was said to have known for some time, and JoAnna Charles, a visitor in Mills’ home. The murders were committed in conjunction with a car burglary and jewelry theft, potentially motivated by a demand that Frances move out of the home in which he’d been living. The jury voted 9-3 for death as it related to Mills’ murder and 10-2 for death as it related to Charles’ murder.

    Sean Smith, also known as Dolan Darling, was 20 years old when he raped and murdered an Orange County woman after breaking into her home. During the penalty phase of Smith’s trial, a taxi driver from the area testified Smith was the same man who shot him while he was working one night. The jury ultimately sentenced Smith to death in an 11-1 vote.

    The defendants have had their cases remanded to local courts for the purposes of determining whether they fall under the retroactive protections of the Hurst case. In court Friday, the attorney general’s office opposed the defendants’ motions for post-conviction relief, arguing that none of the three are entitled to new punishment hearings.

    In McLean’s case, Orange and Osceola County State Attorney Aramis Ayala’s office has also signed on in opposition to a new punishment hearing or the discarding of McLean’s original death sentence.

    The prevailing theory from the state was that each of the crimes was awful enough to have convinced a jury to vote unanimously for death should such a vote have been required at the time. Modern trials involving the death penalty would include written instructions for jurors requiring that a death sentence be unanimously voted upon.

    However, Ayala’s recent affirmation of her unwillingness to seek the death penalty while in office raises questions for old cases that find themselves newly in-flux. Should a judge rule that the Hurst ruling applies, any or all of these cases and eight others could end up having the defendants’ punishment retried in front of a new jury if Ayala and her associates are willing to fight for the death penalty for a second time.

    Ayala’s unwillingness to fight for the death penalty against any defendant who wins relief from his original death sentence would likely result in his temporary life without parole sentence becoming permanent.

    For two weeks, Ayala’s and her spokesperson have confined their remarks on the future of cases like these to saying cases would be examined individually, and that any outcome was dependent upon an unspecified mandate from the state supreme court.

    Ayala’s office has been unable to specify what form that mandate might take, what might prompt it or when it might come.

    By contrast, WFTV Legal Analyst and former Chief Judge Belvin Perry told Eyewitness News no such mandate was in the pipeline. Additionally, the judges in Friday’s hearings appeared to expect an immediate answer as to what Ayala’s office intended to do with each case. They cited confusion surrounding Ayala’s original announcement as a reason for requesting an unambiguous answer.

    Assistant State Attorney Kenneth Nunnelly offered no excuses regarding a pending mandate. Instead he promised a decision soon.

    https://www.wftv.com/news/local/sent...ates/505758767

  7. #7
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    Related:

    Carlie Brucia killer gets new sentencing hearing

    The Sarasota Herald-Tribune

    The Florida Supreme Court on Friday ordered a new sentencing hearing for a man who killed 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in Sarasota County in a case that drew national attention.

    Justices issued a unanimous, one-paragraph order directing a new hearing for Joseph Smith, now 55, who was convicted in the 2004 murder. The order came more than two months after Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office acknowledged in a court filing that Smith should be resentenced because of rulings last year by the Supreme Court in other cases.

    Those rulings came after a series of complicated death penalty developments that began in early 2016 when the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida’s death penalty system unconstitutional because it gave too much authority to judges, instead of juries, in imposing death sentences.

    The attorney general’s office in March also acknowledged the need for new sentencing hearings for several other convicted murderers. Along with Smith, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered new hearings for David Sylvester Frances, Pinkney W. Carter, Gerald Delane Murray and Brandon Lee Bradley.

    https://heraldtribune.com/story/news...ng/5099263001/

  8. #8
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    Orange County man who strangled teen, woman resentenced to life in prison

    David Frances originally sentenced to death

    By Brenda Argueta
    clickorlando.com

    ORLANDO, Fla. – An Orange County man convicted of murder was resentenced to life in prison, years after a change to state law impacted many death penalty cases.

    David Frances was initially sentenced to death for the murders of a teen and her aunt in 2000.

    According to the Orlando Sentinel, Jo Anna Charles and Helena Mills, the girl’s aunt, were strangled with an electrical cord in their condo by Frances and his younger brother, Elvis Frances.

    David Frances’ sentence was vacated in 2017 because the jury’s decision to recommend the death penalty was not unanimous. Florida passed a law in 2017 requiring a unanimous verdict for death penalty recommendations, with a life sentence as the alternative.

    The case was oned of dozens taken away from former State Attorney Aramis Ayala by then Gov. Rick Scott after she announced she would not seek the death penalty in any case. Scott said Ayala’s refusal to seek capital punishment “sends an unacceptable message that she is not interested in considering every available option in the fight for justice.”

    https://www.clickorlando.com/news/lo...ife-in-prison/
    "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."
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