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Thread: David Beasher Snelgrove - Florida

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    David Beasher Snelgrove - Florida




    Facts of the Crime:

    David Snelgrove was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of robbery with a deadly weapon, and one count of burglary of a dwelling with battery. He was sentenced to death on both first-degree-murder convictions.

    On Sunday, June 25, 2000, Glyn and Vivian Fowler were found dead in their home. The elderly couple had been brutally beaten and stabbed to death, as evidenced by multiple fractures and stab wounds spread throughout their bodies. Ultimately, Vivian died from a stab wound to the heart, and Glyn died of a brain injury caused by blunt force trauma to the head. Evidence at the crime scene and in the surrounding area linked David Snelgrove, the twenty-seven-year-old nephew of one of the Fowlers' neighbors, to the murder. Snelgrove had recently moved in with his aunt and his cousin, Jeff McCrae, after being expelled from a drug rehabilitation program. Blood droplets matching Snelgrove's DNA were found throughout the house, as were bloody fingerprints and footprints matching Snelgrove's. A trained bloodhound followed a scent from the blood on the Fowlers' broken window to Snelgrove, and the police recovered a knife in the woods next to the Snelgrove home with blood matching Snelgrove's DNA.

    Snelgrove was re-sentenced to death in Flagler County on October 28, 2009.

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    David Beasher Snelgrove v STATE OF FLORIDA

    In today's opinions, the Florida Supreme Court AFFIRMED Snelgrove's death sentence. The court previously affirmed his convictions but reversed his original death sentences and remanded for a new penalty phase. Snelgrove v. State, 921 So. 2d 560 (Fla. 2005).
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    David Beasher Snelgrove v STATE OF FLORIDA

    Snelgrove's petition for rehearing was denied in today's Florida Supreme Court opinions.
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Snelgrove's petition for writ of certiorari was DENIED.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Florida
    Case Nos.: (SC09-2245)
    Decision Date: April 19, 2012
    Rehearing Denied: January 31, 2013
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    15 Years After Palm Coast Double Murder, David Snelgrove Is Back in Court, Contesting Death Sentence

    On June 25, 2000, Glyn Fowler, 84, and his wife, Vivian, 79. were found dead in their B-Section home in Palm Coast. They’d been bludgeoned and stabbed to death. David Snelgrove, 27 at the time, a neighbor the Fowlers had often helped, befriended and given money, was indicted for the double murder. He was a drug addict and had been after cash or jewelry to pawn. DNA from the Fowlers’ blood was found in his home, as were bloody fingerprints and footprints matching Snelgrove’s, though he denied involvement.

    Snelgrove has twice been sentenced to death for the two murders in a case that remains unresolved: Snelgrove, now 42, was back in Flagler County Circuit court this morning, this time arguing that he’d received ineffective counsel at trial, and emphasizing through his attorneys his mental disabilities in an attempt to yet again overturn his death sentence.

    Snelgrove, dressed in the striped, green and white prison garb reserved for death row inmates, sat in shackles, speaking with one of his attorneys before the proceedings began, often smiling, laughing occasionally, and speaking in an unusually high-pitched, almost infantile voice. His short-cropped hair has almost all grayed. His expression during the hearing was more bland, but not anxious.

    “It’s been a nightmare. I’d like to put it to rest, get it over with,” Randy Fowler, 63, the son of the murdered couple, said today. “The judicial system is taking way too long. Too many excuses. Too many appeals. But I guess it’s our system.” Fowler was in court with his sister. Both live in Long Beach, Calif., where Randy was living when Long Beach police knocked at his door to inform him of his parents’ fate. Having to witness the hearings, and see Snelgrove every time, “brings up the crime every time,” Fowler said. “Seeing him still alive is sickening, you know. It’s not fair to my parents, it’s not fair to us.”

    Early in the morning’s testimonies, John Valerino, who had led Snelgrove’s defense as a public defender, testified in defense of his own performance at trial. He did so next to nine archive boxes that sat on a tray, rising almost the length of an average person’s height, and representing the extent of the case’s length and complexity. John Tanner, the former state attorney–and the state attorney at the time of the original trial and sentencing–was also scheduled to testify.

    The trial began at a time when the words “mental retardation” were still routinely used (as they were today), though Snelgrove’s latest attorney was careful to note that the term today is “mental disability.” The terms were interchangeably used much of the morning as witnesses and attorneys dealt with the morning’s matter: the defense sought to show that Snelgrove’s earlier defense team, at trail, failed him by not rigorously pursuing evidence of his mental disability, and the prosecution seeking to counter those claims by showing that what evidence has turned up remains sketchy without providing convincing arguments to change the outcome of the convictions.

    “There were no records that would indicate that he was mentally retarded or mentally disabled,” John Valerino, the public defender and lead counsel on Snelgrove’s defense team, said. Nor did Valerino’s team, he said, failed to locate anyone who might have documented his mental disabilities. Judge Walsh himself at one point asked Valerino if he’d had any success developing a case for Snelgrove’s mental disability. Valerino said no. He cited findings that Snelgrove “may have been a problem in school, but that he wasn’t diagnosed as mentally retarded,” nor was there anything in the record that anyone could find, he said, that would document such disability.

    But the case also highlights Florida’s outlier status when it coms to the manner in which certain individuals are sentenced to die: in no other state, Alabama included, would Snelgrove have faced the death penalty, given the same circumstances of the case. An Alabama jury must muster at least a 10-2 supermajority to recommend for the death penalty, A simple majority is enough in Florida.

    Snelgrove lived with his aunt Alice Snelgrove on Bayside Drive in Palm Coast’s B-Section. The Fowlers’ bodies were found in their home in their pajamas on Bannbury Lane, near Bayside. They were killed between June 23 and June 25, 2000. It was Alice Snelgrove who, according to a news account at the time, may have alerted neighbors to something being amiss with her neighbors: she noticed that newspapers hadn’t been picked up, and that their vehicle was still in the driveway, though they were supposed to be out of town. That helped lead to the discovery of the killings. On the 26th, deputies recovered the knife used in the attacks. It was in woods next to Snelgrove’s house.

    At trial, a jury in 2002 voted 7-5 to recommend the death sentence for Snelgrove. Kim C. Hammond, the circuit judge at the time, followed the jury’s recommendation. In 2005, the Florida Supreme Court overturned Snelgrove’s death sentences, but on a technicality: it upheld his conviction but found that the jury should not have been given instructions on issuing one recommendation for both murders.

    A second sentencing phase unfolded in 2008, when Snelgrove’s defense attorneys attempted to mitigate the sentence by emphasizing his mental disabilities. But they had difficulties documenting those disabilities, even though they established that he attended classes in special education, and had an IQ of 77, seven points above the minimum required to make an individual eligible for the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally disabled is unconstitutional.) The jury voted 8-4 to impose the death penalty in both killings. Hammond again followed the recommendation. The Supreme Court in 2013 upheld that ruling.

    “My parents were wonderful,” Randy Fowler said today. “They were such good people they offered him work in our backyard before he did this. They were wonderful people. Church-going. They were supposed to be in church, and that’s how their bodies were discovered. They didn’t show up for church. They were ushers that day, and instead of going to church, they were murdered.”

    The elder Fowlers had been in Palm Coast 20 years. They were from Nutley, N.J. Glyn had been superintendent of schools in Nutley. Vivian was the vice president of an insurance agency.

    Death row inmates routinely contest their convictions by arguing ineffective representation. They rarely prevail.

    http://flaglerlive.com/79130/david-snelgrove-murder/

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    DAVID BEASHER SNELGROVE v THE STATE OF FLORIDA and DAVID BEASHER SNELGROVE v JULIE L. JONES, etc.,

    In today's opinions, the Florida Supreme Court AFFIRMED the denial of Snelgrove's post-conviction claims, DENIED his habeas petition, VACATED his two death sentences and remanded for a new penalty phase.
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    Palm Coast double-murderer will wait a year for 3rd death penalty sentencing

    By Frank Fernandez
    The Daytona Beach News-Journal

    BUNNELL — While prosecutors are working to send David Snelgrove back to death row for a third-time, life goes on for the double-murderer who is getting some dental work done in May.

    Snelgrove, 45, said during a hearing on Friday he would rather not return from state prison to the Kim C. Hammond Justice Center on May 25 for a status hearing.

    “The reason why; I’m getting some dental work done,” Snelgrove said. “And I would hate to be caught in the middle there. And it might take about four months to get done. You know how the prison works It’s very slow.”

    The justice system can also be slow, particularly when it comes to the death penalty. This will be the third time prosecutors will argue that Snelgrove deserves a cell on death row for killing his elderly neighbors, Glyn Fowler, 84, and his wife, Vivian, 79, in June 2000. The other two death sentences were overturned.

    The couple lived across the street from Snelgrove in the city’s B section. Snelgrove broke into their home to rob them and pawn their jewelry to support his cocaine habit. He beat and stabbed them 38 times.

    Circuit Judge Kathryn Weston set aside the weeks of Feb. 11, 2019, and Feb. 18, 2019, for Snelgrove’s penalty phase trial before a 12-member jury plus alternates. All 12 jurors must recommend Snelgrove get death for Weston to have the option of sentencing him to death.

    Circuit Judge Dennis Craig recused himself at the request of Snelgrove’s previous defense attorney, said court communications officer Ludmilla Lelis. The defense made the request after Craig informed them that he had been a prosecutor with the state attorney’s office when it prosecuted Snelgrove, although Craig did not work directly on the case.

    A non-unanimous recommendation led to Snelgrove’s most recent death sentences being overturned. His previous death sentences were overturned because the Supreme Court ruled the earlier jury should not have provided one sentencing recommendation for both murders.

    Snelgrove, his hair gray, his hands shackled to his waist and dressed in a striped orange and white jumpsuit, also met his new defense attorney, Michael Nielsen, on Friday during the hearing at the Kim C. Hammond Justice Center.

    Nielsen is fresh off a big victory when he convinced two jurors out of 12 last fall to spare the life of Luis Toledo, who was convicted of killing his wife and her two children in 2013.

    Nielsen along with Jeff Deen and Michael Nielsen represented Toledo but it was Nielsen who argued against the death penalty before jurors.

    Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis suggested on Friday setting the penalty phase out a year from now. Lewis said it would take time to prepare because it would be like holding an entire trial both the guilt and penalty phases.

    Lewis said that’s in part because prosecutors would have proved some of their aggravating factors supporting the death penalty against Snelgrove during a trial’s guilt phase.

    Prosecutors have filed six aggravating factors against Snelgrove: the murders were committed; while he was under community control, during a burglary, for pecuniary gain, and the victims were particularly vulnerable due to advanced age or disability. The murders were also especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.

    Another aggravator is that Snelgrove had been previously convicted of a capital felony or felony involving the use or threat of violence against someone, which in this case applies to one of the two murders.

    Lewis said prosecutors would also likely have to prepare for new arguments against the death penalty from prosecutors.

    http://www.news-journalonline.com/ne...lty-sentencing
    "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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    On and Off Death Row for 17 Years, Palm Coast Double-Murderer David Snelgrove Loses One More Motion

    By FlagerLive.com

    Nineteen years ago in Palm Coast’s B Section, David Snelgrove murdered Glyn Fowler, 84, and his wife, Vivian, 79. He was twice sentenced to die–in 2002 and 2008. The verdict was not unanimous either times.

    As Snelgrove awaited execution on Death Row, the law changed. Florida had been among the few states that allowed death-penalty recommendations not to be unanimous. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional in 2016. Florida changed its law accordingly. A unanimous verdict is now required. Snelgrove’s conviction for the two murders is not contested: he’s not getting a new trial on that. But he’s scheduled for his third sentencing trial in Flagler in January.

    He was in court in Bunnell again today in his lawyers’ latest attempt to not get that far: they were arguing, as his lawyers have before, that Snelgrove’s mental capacities make him ineligible for the death penalty. His IQ hovers around 70, the cut-off below which the Supreme Court ruled individuals may not be eligible for the death penalty. But at several steps in the process, including two decisions by the Florida Supreme Court, Snelgrove has lost the argument that he is intellectually disabled.

    He lost again today. Circuit Judge Kathryn Weston–the fourth judge on the case going back to the late Kim C. Hammond–denied a renewed attempt to argue intellectual disability. But the hearing points to one of the strategies Snelgrove’s defense attorneys will apply at trial in hopes of winning commutation from the death penalty when a jury of 12 will decide the issue.

    Michael Nielsen, one of Snelgrove’s attorneys, had filed a motion to prohibit the imposition of a death sentence following an IQ test finding Snelgrove “likely mentally retarded” according to state law, a finding “based on test scores and collateral information gathered about” him. The examining physician, Stephen Bloomfield, is expected to testify at trial.

    Arguing before Weston this morning, Michael Stone, who is also defending Snelgrove, said the defense recognizes that the Florida Supreme Court has twice ruled against Snelgrove. But Stone pointed the judge to a dissent in one of the Supreme Court's decisions to argue that relying on IQ scores isn’t enough. The court’s test is three-pronged: a defendant must have “significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning,” must have “concurrent deficits in adaptive behavior,” and must have “manifestation of the condition before age eighteen.”

    “You have to consider all three factors, and they have to be considered in tandem,” Stone said.

    Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Dunton, who is prosecuting this phase of the case, said the Supreme Court did just that–twice, while the defense hasn’t come up with new evidence regarding Snelgrove’s past. (That has been one of the defense’s obstacles: there’s a dearth of school records it can rely on.)

    “I think that the state has the right argument. I don’t think that there’s any new evidence that’s been presented,” Weston said as she denied the motion.

    That’s not the end of pre-trial motions. The defense, to Snelgrove’s exasperation, said it still wanted to return to court possibly in November to argue further motions. Snelgrove shook his head and sighed. He had in late August written Weston to talk about his dental appointments, which keep getting cancelled because of court hearings. He is tired of making the trip from state prison to the Flagler jail whenever hearings are scheduled. “In the 19 years I’ve caused no trouble for anyone, I’ve done what has been asked of me, and have never asked for anything,” he wrote the judge on Aug. 25, this is the one time I’m asking for something.”

    He was asking for today’s hearing to be held in November. He didn’t get his wish. His dental appointment was cancelled. He addressed the judge in person today. “I was going to ask if you can just give me 60 days” without a hearing, he told Weston. “If you can leave me alone for 60 days to get this done and over with, I’d be happy.”

    The judge told him he did not have to be brought back for the November hearing, tentatively scheduled for Nov. 12. It was a minor victory in an otherwise larger loss.

    The sentencing trial is scheduled to start on Jan. 6. The judge is asking for three panels of 50 potential jurors each–150 potential jurors in all, for a jury-selection schedule that may stretch over three days. The reason: 12 jurors must be picked, and no juror who is against the death penalty is eligible, nor, generally, are jurors who are too rabidly for the death penalty, either. Inevitably, a huge number of potential jurors are thus disqualified. For Flagler County, it’ll be the first such re-sentencing trial since the nation’s and the state’s highest courts overturned Florida’s death penalty scheme.

    https://flaglerlive.com/144886/snelgrove-hearing/
    "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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    Jury rejects death sentence for Palm Coast killer; judge gives 2 life sentences

    By Matt Bruce
    The Daytona Beach News Journal

    David Snelgrove’s face flushed with emotion as the jury’s decision was read at the end of his death penalty trial Tuesday. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he shifted his eyes toward the ceiling and let out a heavy sigh.

    He thought he’d just been sentenced to death.

    In actuality, he’d been spared.

    The jury of six men and six women spent nearly five hours deliberating before rejecting the prosecution’s third attempt to send Snelgrove to Florida’s death row for the brutal killing of Glen and Vivian Fowler, his former neighbors, inside their Palm Coast home in June 2000.

    The jury’s recommendation culminated a seven-day re-sentencing trial. Circuit Judge Kathryn Weston followed up by sentencing Snelgrove to two consecutive life terms in prison.

    Snelgrove thanked his lead defense attorney, Michael Nielsen, as he walked out of the courtroom.

    “He didn’t even know what the decision was,” Nielsen said afterward. “It was confusing. He said, ‘What does that mean? Is it good?’ and then that’s when it hit him.”

    Snelgrove, who was 28 at the time, broke into the home of Glyn and Vivian Fowler in Palm Coast’s B-Section on June 25, 2000 to rob them of money and jewels he could pawn to support his crack cocaine habit. The couple was asleep when Snelgrove slipped in before dawn, but Glyn Fowler woke up and interrupted the home invasion, triggering a grisly attack. Snelgrove beat, stabbed and strangled the couple before continuing his burglary.

    Glyn Fowler was 84 and Vivian Fowler was 79.

    Snelgrove was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder for their deaths in May 2002.

    Prosecutors from the State Attorney’s Office failed in their bid to get a unanimous decision from the jury on Tuesday. They had to convince all 12 jurors to recommend execution in order for Weston to impose the death penalty, according to state law. The team of
    Assistant State Attorneys Mark Johnson and Jennifer Dunton spent last week building their case upon six aggravating factors that included the sheer brutality of the slayings and the ages of the victims.

    Jurors accepted all six but did not believe they outwieghed mitigating factors submitted by Snelgrove’s team of Seminole County defense attorneys, Nielsen and Jeff Stone.

    Dunton, during her closing argument Monday, reminded jurors that Snelgrove viciously assaulted Glyn Fowler, punching him at least 14 times in the face. Glyn died from blunt force trauma wounds. Vivian died from a stab wound that punctured her heart, according to Dunton, who said Snelgrove also struck her at least three times.

    In all, Snelgrove stabbed the couple 38 times.

    Dunton, who recounted the gruesome crime scene and showed autopsy photos to jurors during the trial, said Snelgrove showed a “complete indifference” to the Fowlers’ suffering during his brutal attack.

    “No conscious, no pity,” she said. “Torture for both of these elderly individuals in their master bedroom in the middle of the night.”

    Snelgrove sobbed silently in his chair and put his head down as the photos were displayed.

    “He’s been breaking down since we got here, honestly,” Nielsen said Tuesday. “This is my 14th death penalty type case. He emoted easily the most of any client I’ve ever had. And I do feel it’s him being sincere. I don’t think he’s making any of that up.”

    Snelgrove was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in May 2002 and the trial jury voted 7-5 to recommend the death sentence. But the Florida Supreme Court in November 2005 reversed the sentence, ruling that jurors in that trial erred by making only
    one sentencing recommendation for the two murders.

    A second jury voted 8-4 to recommend the death penalty in February 2008.

    But the high court revamped the state’s death penalty regulations in 2017, ruling that juries had to be unanimous in recommending a death sentence before a judge could render capital punishment.

    Snelgrove’s attorney laid out 54 mitigating factors, framing the incident as “a robbery/burglary gone bad.” He later described it as the “clumsiest, most spastic murder in the history of crime” during his closing arguments.

    Nielsen relied heavily upon testimony from several of Snelgrove’s family members who recounted his traumatic childhood and bout with drug addiction as he grew older. Many of them told jurors he had a gentle character. Nielsen surmised that Snelgrove used a bad batch of laced cocaine the night of the murders and it sent him into a hyper-aggressive state of paranoia.

    Dr. Joseph Wu, an expert in PET scanning, took the stand Friday and testified that Snelgrove suffered from abnormalities that made his brain smaller than usual. Wu told jurors the brain injuries made him more susceptible to the effects of cocaine.

    The defense also presented testimony that Snelgrove bordered on mental disability, with a low-average IQ of 79.

    Nielsen’s final plea was the last thing jurors heard before they went home Monday afternoon. He told them “justice can be tempered with mercy” and implored them to hold fast to their moral convictions if they weren’t comfortable voting to execute Snelgrove.

    “Life is precious,” Nielsen said during his closing arguments. “A vote for life does not mean that you’re demeaning Mr. and Mrs. Fowler. It just means that you think it’s the correct fate for this case and these facts.”

    https://www.news-journalonline.com/n...life-sentences
    "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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