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Thread: Leo Louis Kaczmar III - Florida Death Row

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    Leo Louis Kaczmar III - Florida Death Row

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    August 13, 2010

    Jury: Dad's Girlfriend's Killer Should Die

    A Clay County jury took just 30 minutes Friday to recommend the death penalty for 26-year-old Leo Kaczmar III, who was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted sexual battery and arson.

    He will be sentenced Sept. 3.

    Kaczmar's attorney, Jerry Shea, said the images of Kaczmar's victim, Maria Ruiz, that were shown during the trial were extremely graphic.

    "The injuries that the victim received were, I think, the deciding factor in the decision," Shea said.

    Ruiz was found killed in her Green Cove Springs home in December 2008. She had been stabbed more than 50 times.

    Prosecutors said Kaczmar, her boyfriend's son, was high on crack cocaine the day of the murder.

    They said after attacking Ruiz, he set her home on fire to cover his tracks.

    "I don't believe he deserves to die," Shea said. "I don't know what happened at the house. I don't think any of us do know what brought about such a difficult situation like that. The wounds were very mortal."

    http://www.news4jax.com/news/24624949/detail.html

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    Clay County Killer Sentenced To Death

    Leo Kaczmar III, convicted in August of first-degree murder, attempted sexual battery and arson in the death of his father's girlfriend, was sentenced Friday to death for the crimes.

    Maria Ruiz was found dead in her Green Cove Springs home in December 2008. She had been stabbed more than 50 times.

    Prosecutors said Kaczmar, 26, was high on crack cocaine the day of the murder. They said after attacking Ruiz, he set her home on fire to cover his tracks.

    The same jury that convicted Kaczmar voted 11-1 to recommend he be put to death. Judge William Wilkes formally sentenced Kaczmar on Friday.

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    http://www.news4jax.com/news/25671546/detail.html

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    LEO LOUIS KACZMAR, III, vs. THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    In today's opinions, the Florida Supreme Court AFFIRMED Kaczmar's conviction, but remanded the case to the trial court for a new penalty phase.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Clay County judge accused of bias, removed from death penalty sentencing

    A Clay County circuit judge has agreed to step down from a death penalty sentencing after the office of State Attorney Angela Corey accused him of being biased in favor of the defendant.

    Circuit Judge John Skinner agreed that another judge would decide whether Leo Louis Kaczmar, 29, should go to Death Row for stabbing 49-year-old Mary Ruiz more than 50 times before setting a fire to cover up the crime in December 2008.

    Assistant State Attorney James Colaw made a motion to remove Skinner from the case last week. In that motion Colaw accused Skinner of telling him that he’d already decided to give Kaczmar life in prison, and wouldn’t be sentencing him to death.

    Skinner made those comments before a sentencing hearing occurred, and it is improper for a judge to express an opinion at that point in time, Colaw said in his motion.

    The family of Mary Ruiz still wants Kaczmar sentenced to death, and the State has a right to argue why the death penalty is justified, Colaw said.

    Skinner granted the motion to recuse himself on Friday. The order granting the motion did not address the substance of Colaw’s allegations, and Skinner could not be reached for comment on Monday.

    Kaczmar was convicted in August 2010 of first-degree murder, arson and attempted sexual battery. The jury that convicted him recommended he get death by an 11-1 vote.

    Circuit Judge William Wilkes, who presided over the trial, sentenced Kaczmar to Death Row in November 2010.

    But the Florida Supreme Court, in a ruling written by Justice Barbara Pariente, threw out the attempted sexual battery conviction and death sentence while affirming the first-degree murder and arson convictions.

    The attempted sexual battery conviction was thrown out because the medical examiner found no signs of sexual assault on Ruiz’s body. Kaczmar told a friend earlier in the night that he was hoping to get Ruiz high on drugs so he could have sex with her, but that circumstantial evidence wasn’t enough to justify a conviction, Pariente said.

    Since the attempted sexual battery was cited by prosecutors as an aggravating factor in why Kaczmar deserved death, the death sentence must be thrown out and a new sentencing hearing held, Pariente said.

    The Supreme Court ruling also said that it appeared Kaczmar killed Ruiz because she rebuffed his advances and that the murder was not cold, calculated and premeditated.

    Under Florida law a person convicted of murder cannot get the death penalty unless it is cold, calculated and premeditated. Attorneys for Kaczmar have argued that he didn’t plan to kill Ruiz, but stabbed her in a drug fueled fit of rage after she cut him with a knife Ruiz grabbed from the kitchen drawer.

    Ruiz was the girlfriend of Kaczmar’s father.

    Skinner took over the case during the second sentencing because Wilkes was dealing with another case. Chief Judge Donald Moran will now assign another judge to the case.

    The only two sentencing options available for Kaczmar are Death Row or life without the possibility of parole.

    Defense Attorney Christopher Anderson declined to comment on Skinner’s recusal. The defense stayed neutral on the issue.

    Colaw referred all questions to State Attorney spokeswoman Jackelyn Barnard, who did not respond to calls or emails.

    http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2...lty-sentencing

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    Jury recommends Clay County man go to Death Row for second time

    A second Clay County jury has recommended that Leo Louis Kaczmar III go to Death Row for killing his father’s girlfriend.

    Kaczmar, 29, was convicted of first-degree murder in the December 2008 stabbing of 49-year-old Mary Ruiz at least 50 times before setting a fire to conceal the crime. He also was convicted of arson and attempted sexual battery.

    He was sentenced to death, but the Florida Supreme Court ordered Kaczmar resentenced.

    The attempted sexual battery conviction was thrown out because the medical examiner found no evidence on Ruiz’s body. Kaczmar told a friend earlier in the night that he was hoping to get Ruiz high on drugs so he could have sex with her, but that circumstantial evidence wasn’t enough to justify a conviction, the Supreme Court ruling said.

    Since the attempted sexual battery was cited by prosecutors as an aggravating factor in why Kaczmar deserved death, the death sentence must be thrown out and a new sentencing hearing held, the ruling said.

    Tuesday another jury unanimously recommended Kaczmar be executed instead of life in prison.

    Circuit Judge William Wilkes will decide whether to follow the jury’s recommendation at a later date. Wilkes is the same judge that put Kaczmar on Death Row before.

    http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2...#ixzz2cYuK8o9h
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    29-year-old sex offender re-sentenced to death in 2008 Clay murder of father's girlfriend

    A 29-year-old Clay County sex offender who got a second chance to avoid a death sentence for stabbing his father’s girlfriend about 90 times is still going to Death Row, a judge ruled Friday according to the State Attoreny’s Office.

    Leo Kaczmar III, 29, was convicted of first-degree murder, arson and attempted sexual battery in 2010 and sentenced to death. But the sex charge was thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court due to circumstantial evidence and the medical examiner found no evidence on 49-year-old Mary Ruiz’s body.

    Since the attempted sexual battery was cited by prosecutors as an aggravating factor in why Kaczmar deserved death, the court ordered a new sentencing.

    A second jury unanimously sentenced him to death, and Circuit Judge William Wilkes followed that recommendation Friday.

    In December 2008 Kaczmar attacked Ruiz while he was high on cocaine. He set the house on fire and after his arrest paid an undercover officer $300 to frame someone else for the murder. He also had a 2005 conviction of using the Internet to solicit or attempt to solicit a child for sex.

    http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2...#ixzz2hRA9KroT
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    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    September 7, 2015

    Clay County death-penalty case appeal goes to Florida Supreme Court

    By Larry Hannan
    The Florida Times-Union

    Very little of Leo Kaczmar’s behavior makes sense in trying to understand it logically.

    Now the Florida Supreme Court must take Kaczmar’s illogical behavior and come up with a logical ruling on whether the 31-year-old sex offender should remain on Death Row for the murder of his father’s girlfriend in Green Cove Springs.

    Kaczmar was convicted of stabbing 49-year-old Maria Ruiz at least 50 times and then setting fire to the home in an attempt to cover up the crime.

    He was offered a plea deal of life without parole to avoid a death sentence. He rejected it.

    When the jury was tasked with making a recommendation of whether Kaczmar should get life or death, he refused to let his lawyers present any mitigation evidence on his behalf. With no argument for why he shouldn’t be executed, the jury recommended death by a 12-0 vote and Circuit Judge Donald Lester complied.

    But Kaczmar does not want to die, said Assistant Public Defender Nada Carey, who appealed his death sentence to the Florida Supreme Court last week.

    “Mr. Kaczmar waived mitigation evidence and said he wanted to receive the death penalty to get legal counsel for appeals,” Carey said during oral arguments to Supreme Court justices.

    The mitigation would have included evidence that Kaczmar had been abused throughout his life and has a serious addiction to drugs and alcohol.

    Justice Barbara Pariente expressed shock and confusion at Kaczmar’s action.

    “Did he waive the mitigation because he thought he’d get a greater review of his death sentence?” Pariente said. “And did someone explain to him that’s not the case?”

    Kaczmar needs to understand that it’s harder for them to review his case and determine that he might be wrongly on Death Row if he waives mitigation, Pariente said.

    Carey is arguing that Lester made a mistake in giving the unanimous jury recommendation of death “great weight” before sentencing Kaczmar to death. She’s arguing that the Supreme Court should throw out the death sentence and send the case back to Lester with an instruction to resentence Kaczmar without giving the jury recommendation much credibility.

    But justices seemed resistant to that idea and pointed out that Lester knew the arguments against sentencing Kaczmar to death even if the jury didn’t.

    Lester did an independent investigation and came to his own conclusion that Kaczmar deserved death, said Justice James Perry.

    Justice Fred Lewis also pointed out that while mitigation of Kaczmar’s history of being abused and using drugs wasn’t heard by jurors, Lester did hear about it during a sentencing hearing. So Pariente said sending it back to Lester seemed like a waste of time.

    This is the second time Kaczmar’s death sentence has gone to the Supreme Court. He was originally convicted of first-degree murder, arson and attempted sexual battery in 2010 and sentenced to death.

    But the sex charge was thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court due to circumstantial evidence and the medical examiner finding no evidence of assault on Ruiz’s body.

    Since the attempted sexual battery was cited by prosecutors as an aggravating factor in why Kaczmar deserved death, the court ordered a new sentencing.

    The second jury recommended death with Kaczmar refusing to defend himself.

    Ruiz was killed in December 2008 with police and prosecutors saying Kaczmar attacked her while he was high on cocaine.

    He set the house on fire and after his arrest paid an undercover officer $300 to frame someone else for the murder.

    Kaczmar also had a 2005 conviction of using the Internet to solicit or attempt to solicit a child for sex.

    Justices did not say when they would issue a ruling in the case. Kaczmar will remain in prison while the appeal is decided.

    http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2...-supreme-court

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Florida Supreme Court keeps a Jacksonville death sentence, tosses another

    The Florida Supreme Court upheld one Jacksonville death sentence and threw out another Tuesday.

    The state’s highest court found that because a jury was unanimous in sentencing Leo Louis Kaczmar III to death, that death sentence deserves to be upheld.

    But Paul Durousseau, a convicted serial killer who juries found had killed and raped five women, was originally sentenced to death by a vote of 10-to-2, so the state Supreme Court said he deserves to be resentenced.

    The Supreme Court has thrown out the state’s death penalty as unconstitutional because it didn’t require unanimous jury decisions on sentencing.

    http://jacksonville.com/news/2017-01...tosses-another
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Convicted killer to get new trial

    By Eric Cravey
    Clay Today Online

    TALLAHASSEE – A 33-year-old Green Cove Springs man sentenced to death for the December 2008 stabbing death of his father’s live-in girlfriend will get a new trial after a 78-page ruling handed down Monday by the Florida Supreme Court.

    The case involving Leo Louis Kaczmar III comes in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s May refusal to hear an appeal by State Attorney Pam Bondi on the status of Florida’s Death Penalty law. Bondi had appealed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling under a case called Hurst v. Florida. The nation’s high court ruled the Florida statute unconstitutional as Florida, up to that point, had allowed the death penalty be handed down without a unanimous jury verdict. Now, Floridians can only be given the death penalty by a unanimous vote of the lower court jury.

    Kaczmar was given the death penalty on August 12, 2010 by an 11-1 vote. He was given a second death penalty sentence on August 20, 2013 after winning an appeal for a new sentencing hearing. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling only takes into account Kaczmar’s original sentence.

    “Currently, we’re operating under the new death penalty statute going forward. I feel very comfortable. We’re securing unanimous death penalty recommendations post-2002, meaning Ring v. Arizona those cases will come back for re-sentencing,” Bondi said May 23 in a Tallahassee press conference.

    Bondi was referring to a new Florida death penalty statute passed by the legislature in 2016 after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state to change the statute mandating a unanimous verdict in order to sentence a defendant to death.

    Kaczmar was found guilty of fatally stabbing 49-year-old Maria Ruiz between 90 and 100 times all over her body after a night of using cocaine and playing a pornographic film in which he attempted to coax Ruiz into having sex with him. After the stabbing, he left the house and set it on fire in an attempt to hide evidence, according to police accounts and court records.

    Along with first-degree murder, he was charged with one count each of arson and attempted sexual battery, despite a medical examiner’s report that stated the woman’s body showed no signs she had been sexually assaulted. He was give concurrent sentences of 30 years for arson and 15 years for the sex crime.

    “At best the prosecution proved only that he had harassed Maria Ruiz. With some persistence, he bothered her to the point that she fled to the kitchen, got a knife, and threatened him with it. At no time did he make any overt acts to show he intended to sexually batter her,” states the Florida Supreme Court ruling.

    The ruling also cites the lower court “fundamentally erred” when Judge William Wilkes did not give the jury instructions on the defense called “heat of passion.” The ruled there was no premeditation on Kaczmar’s part to kill Ruiz.

    “In this case, the court instructed the jury as to the defense to first-degree murder but omitted any guidance as to it also being a defense to a lesser type of homicide. That was particularly egregious here because Kaczmar’s defense was that, although he had killed Maria Ruiz, he did not have a premeditated attempt to do so. As such, the court’s failure to give the complete heat of passion instruction amounted to fundamental error,” states the ruling.

    The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the lower court limited what Kaczmar could say in his own defense.

    “There is nothing wrong with doing that, but when then court limited what the defendant could say it effectively gutted his defense that he had killed Maria Ruiz in the heat of passion,” states the ruling.

    The state’s high court also ruled that state prosecutors justified seeking the death penalty in an improper manner by saying Kaczmar killed Ruiz “in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification.”

    “That was error. The evidence shows that there was only rage when he killed her. The evidence, similarly shows no careful plot to kill. The State proved, at most, that the defendant wanted to have sex with her and harassed her enough until she threatened him with a knife. After the killing, he may have devised a clumsy plan to destroy evidence of what he had done, but what he did then does not show he had some prearranged plan to kill her,” states the ruling.

    In the Kaczmar ruling, Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara J. Pariente made a point to voice her opposition to split jury death penalty recommendations.

    “The eleven-to-one vote on the advisory sentence may very well violate the constitutional right to a unanimous jury in light of the holding in Ring that the jury is the finder of fact on aggravating circumstances that qualify the defendant for the death penalty,” Pariente states in the ruling.

    At press time, Kaczmar remained held in the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. There is no date set yet for a new trial.

    http://www.claytodayonline.com/stori...new-trial,7365
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