Florida

FLORIDA – Carlie Brucia’s killer appeals death sentence – Joseph Smith

february 5, 2014 (mysuncoast.com)

Carlie BruciaSARASOTA, Fla. – The man convicted of killing 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in 2004 is appealing his death sentence to Florida’s Supreme Court. 

Joseph Smith was found guilty of the 2004 kidnapping, sexual battery and murder of the young girl in Sarasota County.  Smith’s attorney claims a number of errors in his trial led to his death sentence.

Florida’s Supreme Court judges will hear the argument Wednesday.  Smith’s appeal requests a new trial or penalty phase.

This is the second appeal for Smith, who is currently on death row in a Tallahassee prison

 

 

Carlie Brucia

With 132 Death Row Inmates Readied for Execution, Lawyers Contest Fast-Track Law Before Florida Justices

February 4, 2014 (flaglerlive.com)

A new law intended to speed up executions did little to change the status quo, an attorney representing the state told the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday.

But a lawyer representing Death Row inmates argued that the “Timely Justice Act” is premised on a faulty list that violates the constitutionally protected separation of powers as well as inmates’ rights to due process.

More than 150 lawyers and Death Row inmates are challenging the law, signed by Gov. Rick Scott in June.

The law requires the Supreme Court clerk to give the governor a certified list of Death Row inmates whose initial state and federal appeals have been exhausted. The law orders the governor to sign death warrants for the condemned on the list within 30 days and to direct the warden to schedule their executions within 180 days — but only once the executive clemency process has been completed. Scott and his lawyers maintain that the clemency process ends when the governor signs a warrant.

In October, then-Supreme Court Clerk Tom Hall certified to Scott an initial list of 132 inmates who are at least partially “warrant ready” under the requirements of the law.

Scott has signed four death warrants since the law went into effect. Prior to that, Scott ordered nine executions since taking office in 2011.

Marty McClain, who represented the lawyers and inmates during oral arguments before the court on Tuesday morning, said the “warrant ready” list was flawed and included some Death Row convicts whose litigation was still pending.

But Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar told the justices that “the list is just to provide for information purposes” and did not change the process by which warrants are signed by the governor. Lawmakers who sponsored the legislation said it was intended to shorten the time between conviction and execution, which now is longer than two decades.

“It seems that the argument being made is that the Timely Justice Act was all for show and didn’t actually change anything,” McClain argued. “Certainly that was not what was expressed by the Legislature at the time. They meant to make changes.”

Some of the justices took issue with McClain’s argument that the Legislature had encroached on their power by forcing their administrator to generate the list.

Justice R. Fred Lewis said he found “difficult to understand why it’s unconstitutional for this court to give information” because that is “very natural and normal” within court operations.

Justice Barbara Pariente suggested that, although “we may not all agree that this is the best policy,” the court could add more information to the list and give lawyers representing Death Row inmates the chance to show why their clients should not be included on it before sending it to the governor.

And she pointed out that there is nothing in the new law that prohibits the court from issuing a stay once a warrant has been signed, pointing to the case of Ray Swafford, whose execution was halted by the court hours before he was scheduled to be put to death in 1990. Swafford, who was deemed “warrant ready” by Hall in October, has spent 28 years on Death Row for the abduction, rape and murder of a gas station attendant in Volusia County.

In November, the Florida high court vacated Swafford’s sentence and ordered a new trial based on new DNA evidence. But McClain said the Swafford case was a perfect example why the law is problematic.

Swafford had at least five appeals before the court ordered a new trial in the fall, McClain pointed out.

“Twenty-one years after the conviction, the information develops. He could have been executed in 1990,” McClain said.

FLORIDA – Convicted killer Emilia Carr’s lawyer argues appeal before Florida Supreme Court

february 3, 2014 (Ocala)

Counsel for a Marion County woman sentenced to death row argued for a sentence reversal before the Florida Supreme Court Monday morning, stating his client is less culpable in the crime than her co-defendant — who is serving life imprisonment for the same offense.

Standing before the panel in Tallahassee, Emilia Carr’s attorney, Christopher S. Quarles, argued the Supreme Court should rule on the issue instead of choosing another remedy: sending the case back to the trial court to deal with the sentence question, either in a separate hearing or through a post-conviction relief proceeding.

“I think the evidence is very clear Joshua Fulgham is more culpable,” argued Quarles, referring to Carr’s co-defendant. “He had the motive, he hatched the plan, he brought the victim to the scene of the crime, and it’s very unfair…he is serving a life sentence when she is sentenced to death.”

According to trial testimony, Fulgham, who was Carr’s lover, lured his estranged wife, Heather Strong, 26, to a trailer in Boardman, which is in north Marion County near McIntosh. There, the pair duct taped her to a chair, suffocated her and then buried the body.

The co-defendants were tried in separate trials, and the state sought the death penalty for both. They both were found guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping.

In the first trial, a jury recommended death for Carr in a 7-5 vote in December 2010. The judge in that case followed the recommendation and put her on death row.

The jury in the second trial returned a recommendation of life imprisonment for Fulgham in April 2012. Again, the judge followed the recommendation.

“They had different judges, they had different juries, they had different legal teams,” said Quarles.

He argued that during each trial the state painted that defendant as the mastermind, even though evidence shows Fulgham had been manipulating both Strong and Carr in the time period leading up to the crime.

Justice Charles Canady pointed out that Carr, 29, has an IQ of 125, while Fulgham, 32, is intellectually challenged.

“In the actual commission of the crime Ms. Carr was heavily involved in what was going on,” countered Assistant Attorney General Sara Macks.

She pointed to several factors motivating Carr including the fact that Carr wanted to raise a family with Fulgham.

Carr gave birth to Fulgham’s child during her time inside the Marion County jail pending trial. Macks also pointed to threats Carr had made of hiring someone to kill Strong.

Justice Jorge Labarga wondered why the two trial court judges didn’t wait and sentence the co-defendants around the same time after receiving the respective jury recommendations.

As part of her explanation, Macks said Fulgham’s trial had been delayed more than one year when counsel from Miami had become involved.

She urged the high court to resolve the direct appeal before redirecting the case back to the trial court. Macks said if the issue is addressed at the trial court level during post-conviction relief, Carr’s defense would also be able to bring up any issues connected with mitigation.

“This is not a death case,” Quarles argued in rebuttal before the panel adjourned.

A ruling is expected at a later date.

Carr is currently housed at Lowell Correctional Institution with the other five women on Florida’s death row. Fulgham is currently housed at Florida State Prison in Raiford, according to state prison records.

In August, Fulgham sent a hand-written letter to the Marion County Jail through his mother intended for convicted murderer Michael Bargo. Inmates are not granted the same privacy as the general public and therefore their mail is public record except for medical records and legal correspondence.

In the letter, Fulgham offered Bargo advice about prison. “A lot of people will tell you a life sentence is the same as death row,” he wrote, adding that such advice is wrong.

“If you do end up in prison at all, it isn’t that bad,” Fulgham wrote, describing his access to an MP3 player, television and Playboy magazine.

Florida Supreme Court hears argument of Longwood killer who asked for death penalty – William Roger Davis III

february 3. 2014 (orlandosentinel)

From the witness stand, the man who kidnapped, raped and strangled a Longwood used car lot receptionist asked jurors to give him the death penalty, and they did.

Today a government lawyer who defends death row inmates asked the Florida Supreme Court to go against his wishes and throw out his death sentence.

William Roger Davis III, 35, killed Fabiana Malave, Oct. 29, 2009. According to evidence at his trial, he abducted her at knifepoint from Super Sport Auto, the small car lot on U.S. Highway 17-92 in Longwood where she worked, drove her to the Orlando house where he lived, raped her then ordered her to get dressed and to get back on his bed, where he strangled her.

He then loaded her body into his SUV and drove around for hours before parking a few dozen feet from where he had abducted her, where Seminole County deputies spotted his vehicle then arrested him. Today, Davis was not on trial before the Florida Supreme Court. The judge who gave him the death penalty, Circuit Judge John Galluzzo of Sanford, was.

Nancy J. Ryan, a Daytona Beach assistant public defender, argued that Galluzzo made three technical errors in imposing the death sentence, reason enough to send the case back to Seminole County for a new hearing.

One of the biggest was that he didn’t give enough weight to Davis’ mental state at the time of the homicide, she said.

Davis and four mental health experts testified that he suffers from bipolar disorder and that he had been off his medication for a year and a half when he killed Malave.

His testimony about why he killed Malave was chilling.

“I don’t really have an answer for that,” he told a Seminole County Sheriff’s detective a few hours after the homicide. He went on to add that killing someone felt “pretty interesting. … squeeze the life out of somebody. … I feel liberated.”

And when asked if he’d do it again, his answer, “Oh, yeah.”

Galluzzo gave great weight to Davis’ testimony that if given the opportunity, he’d again go off his medication and would likely do violence to someone else, Ryan pointed out.

He focused too much on that and not enough on the fact that Davis suffered from an extreme emotional disturbance at the time, Ryan argued.

But Assistant Attorney General Stacey Kircher today told justices that Davis was not in an extreme emotional state.

“He does not appear to suffer from hallucinations,” she said. “He was very calm, reflective.”

After killing Malave, he put her body in his SUV and drove to a restaurant, to a music store to play with instruments, to a park to smoke, Kircher argued.

What he was doing, she said, was killing time until it got dark, when he planned to put Malave’s body back in her car at the car lot.

Justices made no decision today but asked questions of both attorneys.

Justice Barbara Pariente suggested that even if Galluzzo did not give enough weight to Davis’ mental state, there were many other valid legal reasons, carefully spelled out in the judge’s sentencing order, why the death penalty was the right sentence.

A Seminole County jury voted 7-5 to recommend death two years ago. The same jury had earlier rejected Davis’ argument that he was innocent because he was insane.

FLORIDA – Death Row inmate demands Irish government help on appeal – Michael Fitzpatrick

February 2, 2014

Reprieve, a UK-based legal charity, has censured the Irish government for failing to provide adequate support to Michael Fitzpatrick, an Irish citizen who spent over a decade on death row in Florida and is now up for a retrial. The Irish government has denied the allegation.

Fitzpatrick, who was born in the US, was granted dual Irish citizenship in September 2013. He was eligible to apply through one of his grandmothers, who was born in Tipperary and immigrated to America.

According to a statement released by Reprieve, which aids in cases around the world where it feels human rights are most at risk, the Irish government refused to send a representative to a key hearing in Fitzpatrick’s case on January 10.

“It is standard practice for government officials to provide extensive consular assistance to nationals imprisoned abroad, including attending hearings and trials to ensure that minimum standards are upheld,” the release said.

Capital punishment was abolished in Ireland in 1964.

Fitzpatrick, 51, was convicted in 2001 for the 1996 rape and first-degree murder of Laura Romines, 28, who was found in the early hours of August 18 wandering a rural road in Land O’Lakes, Florida, naked and with her throat slit. She was hospitalized and died three weeks later.

Romines told first responders at the scene that she had been attacked by a man named “Steve,” who investigators first presumed to be Stephen Kirk, a motel security guard. Romines had been staying with Kirk and his wife. Kirk was exculpated by a “significant amount” of evidence, including numerous witnesses who had seen him at work at the time of the attack.

Romines’ boyfriend, Joe Galbert, who had recently kicked her out of the Motel 6 room where they had been living, was eliminated as a suspect because he was in jail at the time.

Police zeroed in on Fitzpatrick, who had been working as a pizza delivery man, because witnesses reported seeing him with Romines at various points the day before, and because the semen found by a SAVE (sexual assault victim examination) performed on Romines at the hospital was identified as his. After first denying that he had any sexual encounter with Romines, Fitzpatrick claimed that it was consensual and had taken place on the morning of the 17th.

Fingernail scrapings taken from Romines during the SAVE test indicated the potential involvement of another, unidentified male.

In 2001, Fitzpatrick was sentenced with 30 years in prison and the death penalty, to be served concurrently. His direct appeal was affirmed.

His post-conviction appeal began in 2005, and on June 27 of last year the Florida Supreme Court unanimously upheld the circuit court’s decision that Fitzpatrick should be granted a retrial due to overwhelming evidence that his first attorney, Bill Ebel, failed to defend him adequately.

Mark Gruber, one of the attorneys from Capital Collateral Regional Counsel who handled Fitzpatrick’s post-conviction appeal, told IrishCentral that Ebel “had the case for four years and never obtained the assistance of anyone. Not a co-counsel, not an expert witness, not a private investigator. The prosecution brought in expert witnesses, a medical examiner, and there just wasn’t any rebuttal. . . . The prosecutor made that exact argument during closing arguments to the jury: ‘Here’s all this scientific evidence that we brought in and there hasn’t been any challenge to it.’ So that’s what we did in post-conviction.”

The medical experts consulted for the post-conviction proceedings stated that many of the conclusions drawn by the state in Fitzpatrick’s first trial were inaccurate or unfounded, and that some of the experts it brought to the stand were not qualified to testify in that capacity.

After Fitzpatrick’s citizenship was confirmed in September, Reprieve asked the Irish government to become involved in his case. Soon after, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) issued a release stating that they were “providing consular assistance to Mr. Fitzpatrick and [would] notify the relevant US authorities of our interest in the case.”

At the January 10 hearing, the state was attempting to link Fitzpatrick to the unsolved 1992 murder of a woman in Tampa, FL. According to Fitzpatrick’s current attorney, Phil Hindahl, the hearing has been extended and will continue on February 27.

In Reprieve’s most recent release, Maya Foa, Director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: “Michael has already spent more than ten years on death row because of a horrifically unfair first trial. The Irish government could step in to ensure that history does not repeat itself and yet they are refusing to do even the bare minimum.”

In response to inquiries made to the Consulate General of Ireland in Atlanta, under whose jurisdiction Florida falls, the DFA Press Office stated via email that the department is “offering full consular assistance to Mr. Michael Fitzpatrick and will continue to do so as required. . . . We have notified the relevant US authorities of our interest in the case, which is going through normal judicial procedure in the United States.

“Departmental representatives would not routinely attend such hearings, particularly when we are satisfied that the Irish citizen involved has full access to legal counsel. We do maintain contact with the citizen’s lawyers to ensure that we are informed about proceedings, and we are also in contact with the NGO Reprieve on this case.”

The email also noted that, although the Irish government is not automatically entitled to consular prison visits with American citizens being tried in a US court, they had “sought and were granted one, which was undertaken by the Consul General Paul Gleason based in Atlanta in October 2013.”

Fitzpatrick’s attorney confirmed this. “I’ve had contact with the Consulate General of Ireland [in Atlanta] and I think that they intend on appearing in future hearings. As far as the hearing on January 10, for some reason they weren’t able to attend. I do know that [Atlanta Consul General] Paul Gleason, has been to the local jail and has met with Mr. Fitzpatrick. It was several months ago, but he has offered and is providing consular services, whatever that entails. . . so that’s their role right now as far as their input and their participation in the trial.”

The communications officers at Reprieve declined to provide further information as to what steps they would like to see the Irish government take on Fitzpatrick’s behalf.

Fitzpatrick’s retrial will begin on June 16.

FLORIDA – When parents kill children, death penalty is rare, experts say …

february 2, 2014 (orlondosentinel)

After a kick to the head, 15-pound infant Ayden Perry had no chance for survival, police said.

 

Ayden was 2 months, 23 days old when he was pronounced dead last February, and St. Cloud police say his sleep-deprived father, Larry Perry, delivered the fatal blow.

 

That beating on Feb. 13, 2013, put Perry on the short list of Central Florida parents deemed among the worst — suspects who could face capital punishment if convicted of killing their own children.

Six Central Florida children died in 2013 as a result of abuse or neglect from parents or guardians, the Florida Department of Children and Families said.

 

Of those cases, Ayden’s and Ke’Andre Coleman’s fatal beatings were the only ones to become death-penalty cases in Central Florida.

Ke’Andre’s mother, Mikkia Lewis, and her boyfriend, Joe McCaskell, are accused of beating and torturing the 4-year-old boy to death in April in South Daytona, an arrest report said.

 

A medical examiner said Ke’Andre was severely beaten with two shoes and forced to exercise to exhaustion. His shoulders were dislocated and his thighs were hemorrhaging.

 

McCaskell, 32, admitted to beating the child and told investigators he saw Lewis, 22, beat Ke’Andre while screaming that she didn’t want him anymore, the report states.

 

A grand jury indicted the couple on first-degree murder charges in August and Volusia County prosecutors filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in October.

 

For Perry, prosecutors initially decided not to pursue death but then switched gears and filed a notice of intent in December, nearly a year after his young son’s killing.

 

Experts say unless parents have a history of violent behavior, it’s rare for parents accused of killing their own children to become candidates for the death penalty — which is usually set aside for the most egregious acts of premeditated murder.

 

And it’s even more rare for a jury to actually recommend death for these parents after a guilty verdict.

 

That’s because, although they won’t excuse the crime, jurors can sympathize with crimes of passion provoked by complex and deep-seated mental health or family issues, according to Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based research nonprofit.

 

“There are understandable difference between that and a serial killer,” Dieter said. “The family dynamics that lead to that kind of murder, it’s something juries can relate to — even if they would never do it.”

In the last child-abuse death-penalty case resolved in Central Florida, Orange County father Keith Skinner pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated child abuse to avoid a possible death sentence.

 

Skinner was released from prison in 2008 after serving four years on a separate child-abuse conviction, Department of Corrections records show.

 

After his release, Skinner had another child and in 2010, he beat that child — 8-month-old Triumph Skinner — to death.

 

Ayden’s mom couldn’t pay bail

 

Perry had no criminal history before his arrest in Ayden’s death.

 

He had been caring for Ayden alone for about two weeks after the boy’s mother, Kathy Barnes, was arrested on charges of trafficking oxycodone. Bail for Barnes had been set at $50,000 and she was forced to stay in the Osceola County Jail because she couldn’t pay.

On Feb. 13, Perry told police that no matter what he did, he couldn’t get Ayden to stop crying.

In the autopsy report, a medical examiner noted that before the beating, Ayden had likely been well taken care of. He was developing normally and growing at a healthy rate. The nearly 3-month-old weighed 15 pounds and was 23 inches long the evening of his death.

That night, Perry said he tried to quiet Ayden by first turning on the vacuum cleaner, hoping the drone would soothe him. When that didn’t work, Perry put the boy in a rocking swing then tried to feed him.

 

Perry said he didn’t have enough help with the child and hadn’t been getting enough sleep so when Ayden refused to stop crying, Perry snapped.

“I pretty much went crazy. I can’t do this [expletive] by myself,” 29-year-old Larry Perry told an operator when he called 911 about 10:40 p.m. “I called the police because I know what I did and I deserve whatever.”

 

911 call captured last breaths

 

Police say Perry slammed the infant into a bedroom wall.

 

The little boy’s blood had soaked through red sheets on Perry’s queen-sized bed and a blanket on the living-room couch. Two trails of blood were also streaked across the living-room carpet, a police report said.

 

According to police, Perry also kicked the child in the torso and stomped on his head so hard that he left behind a shoe-print bruise that spanned from just above the infant’s hairline to his mouth.

 

Perry told 911 dispatchers that his son didn’t stop crying until Perry “twisted his neck.” Ayden could be heard gasping for breath in the background of the 911 call, the report said.

 

Ayden was pronounced dead within two hours at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. His cause of death was listed as blunt-force head trauma.

 

Now, Perry’s life is in the hands of the Public Defender’s Office, which may need to regroup and change its strategy to argue the case now that death is being considered if he is convicted.

 

Dieter, with the Death Penalty Information Center, said it will be up to Perry’s attorney to make a jury believe Perry acted in the heat of the moment and though he may have been a threat to his son, that does not mean he is a threat to society in general.

 

“(The jury) will need to hear things they can relate to,” Dieter said. “The defense will need to tell the story of the family and put it in an understandable way. Put it in context and sometimes jurors will at least lessen the punishment.”

If he avoids death, Perry will be sentenced to life in prison if he is found guilty of first-degree murder at trial

UPCOMING EXECUTION: Florida’s Narrow Interpretation of Mental Competency Leads to New Date

 

Florida has set an August 5 execution date for John Ferguson, a death row inmate who has suffered from severe mental illness for more than four decades. As far back as 1965, Ferguson was found to experience visual hallucinations. He was sent to mental institutions and was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, delusional, and aggressive. In 1975, a mental health doctor described Ferguson as “dangerous and cannot be released under any circumstances.” Nevertheless, he was released less than a year later. Ferguson believes he is the “Prince of God” and is being executed so can save the world. Ferguson’s attorneys recently filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that Florida courts have applied the wrong standard for mental competency, ignoring the current interpretation of this issue by the High Court, which requires that an inmate have a rational understanding of why he is being executed. An earlier editorial in the Tampa Bay Times opposing Ferguson’s execution, agreed, “Florida is embracing an interpretation of competency for execution so pinched that it would virtually extinguish limits on executing the severely mentally ill. The state says Ferguson is aware that he is being put to death and that he committed murder, and is therefore competent to be executed.”

(“Scott Sets New Date For Executing Mass Killer,” Associated Press, July 24, 2013; Editorial Board, “State shouldn’t execute severely mentally ill killer,” Tampa Bay Times, November 2012; Read Ferguson’s petition to U.S. Supreme Court). See American Bar Association’s amicus brief on behalf of Ferguson.

Justice Department To Sift Through Evidence In Zimmerman Case, Look For Potential Racial Motive

July 16, 2013

MIAMI — The Justice Department will sift through trial testimony, interviews and other evidence during what is likely to be a months-long investigation into whether George Zimmerman violated Trayvon Martin’s civil rights when he shot the black teenager.

The key to charging Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, lies in whether evidence exists that he was motivated by racial animosity to kill Martin, who was 17 when he was shot during a fight with Zimmerman in February 2012. And while Martin’s family has said the teen was racially profiled, no evidence surfaced during the state trial that Zimmerman had a racial bias.

Former Miami federal prosecutor David S. Weinstein says it will likely be months before a decision is made on whether to bring charges.

Zimmerman, 29, was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges after claiming he fired his weapon in self-defense only after Martin attacked him. His friends and family have repeatedly denied he harbored racial animosity toward blacks. Florida did not use its own hate crime laws against Zimmerman.

Legal experts say the FBI and prosecutors will go back through the interviews done before the state case began; look at all the forensics such as crime scene records and medical reports; and review the state’s witnesses to see if any who did not testify might have important information.

However, investigators are not limited to existing evidence; they can pursue new evidence and conduct new interviews as they see fit. For instance, federal investigators could look more closely at Zimmerman’s past for any evidence of racial bias.

“They are going to need to do a thorough vetting of the facts. It takes time,” said Lauren Resnick, a former prosecutor who obtained a guilty verdict in a 1991 New York hate crime case involving the stabbing death of an Orthodox Jew. Those defendants had been acquitted in state court.

In a speech Tuesday to an NAACP convention in Orlando, Attorney General Eric Holder said “I am concerned” about the Zimmerman case and pledged the Justice Department will conduct a thorough review.

“While that inquiry is ongoing, I can promise that the Department of Justice will consider all available information before determining what action to take,” he said.

The lone juror in the case who has spoken publicly – known only as Juror B37 because their identities have not been released – said Monday that she did not believe Zimmerman followed Martin because the teen was black.

Still, supporters of the Justice Department filing civil rights charges say additional evidence could exist in the federal investigation that didn’t come up in the state prosecution of Zimmerman, possibly even witnesses who have not previously been interviewed or did not come up in the state case.

“They have a separate set of evidence they’re looking at,” said Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “They might have additional witnesses that were never called upon by the state. I think they will make the best decision that is possible in this case and they will pursue what they think is legally possible.”

Several civil rights groups, including the NAACP, are demanding that the Justice Department bring federal charges against Zimmerman, and there have been numerous protests around the country about the outcome of the Florida trial.

During a news conference Tuesday, the Rev. Al Sharpton acknowledged there are hurdles. But he said there remains a fundamental question of “does Trayvon Martin and the Trayvon Martins of this country have the civil right to go home?”

He added: “… we have some experience on how to deal with hurdles and we see that as part of our strategy.”

Beyond the exact language of the law itself, the federal probe must navigate between sensitive racial and political issues that arose when Zimmerman initially wasn’t charged in Martin’s killing.

“Many people simply cannot process how an unarmed teenager is killed, and yet no one is held criminally accountable for his death,” said Marcellus McRae, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles.

Resnick said a federal jury would have to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman had a racial motive when he began following Martin and that he did not act in self-defense when he fired his gun.

“There remains the serious challenge that prosecutors still have to prove the racial motive,” she said.

Zimmerman could get life in prison if charged and convicted under federal hate crime laws.

Generally, the Justice Department is reluctant to get involved in cases that have already been tried before a state jury, in part because of concerns about double jeopardy.

Perhaps the best-known example where federal prosecutors did intervene was the case of four police officers acquitted after a California state trial in the beating of motorist Rodney King, which triggered deadly riots in the Los Angeles area in 1992.

Two of the four officers were convicted in federal court of violating King’s rights, but that case differs from Zimmerman’s because they were acting as sworn law enforcement officials, not as a private citizen claiming self-defense.

In contrast, the Justice Department declined to prosecute New York Police Department officers after they were acquitted in the 2006 shootings of three men including Sean Bell, who was fatally wounded the morning of his planned wedding. The short Justice Department statement – issued in 2010, four years after the shooting – simply said there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

“Neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation,” the department said in the Bell case.

___

Associated Press writer Mike Schneider in Orlando and Shaquille Brewster in Washington contributed to this story.

FLORIDA – Jacksonville man faces death penalty again after getting life in first murder case. DeShawn Leon Green

Octobre 30, 2012 http://m.jacksonville.com

For the second time, the state is attempting to put DeShawn Leon Green on Death Row.

Tuesday the state began prosecuting Green, 28, in the murder of Robert Lee Kearney and the attempted murder of Katherine George. The two were both victims of a drive-by shooting outside Jacksonville’s Confederate Point Apartments in March 2009.

Police said Kearney, 24, and George, then 20, were outside the apartments when a vehicle pulled up and more than a dozen shots were fired from a rifle. Prosecutors are arguing that Green fired those shots with a AR-15 assault rifle he’d nicknamed “Baby.”

Assistant State Attorney Richard Mantei said Green shot the two because friends of his had been shot at earlier in the night by Kearney, and Green was out for revenge.

“The defendant in this case pulled the trigger at least 13 times,” Mantei said to the jury. “He was there to settle a score.”

But defense attorney Francis Shea argued that the real shooters blamed Green and pointed the finger at Bruce Brice Jr., the man police believe Kearney fired a gun at earlier in the night but didn’t wound.

When police questioned Brice and another witness, they didn’t mention Green at all. It wasn’t until months later that they fingered Green as the culprit, Shea said.

“Mr. Brice had everything at risk,” Shea said. “While Mr. Green had no motive.”

Green was previously convicted in the August 2009 shooting of Willie Golden, 28, in a home on West 26th Street. The prosecution withdrew seeking the death penalty because the jury said premeditation wasn’t proven.

Prosecutors said Green killed Golden in retaliation of a drive-by shooting on a drug house that Green ran just two streets over from the shooting.

Green also faces a third trial for the murder of Bryan Clemons, 23, who was gunned down with an assault rifle in April 2009 as he sat in a chair in a home on West 13th Street.

The Clemons killing was the result of an ongoing dispute between two groups of men from Green’s Grand Park neighborhood and the nearby Flag Street area.

The dispute began in November 2008 when the two groups fought over a drink thrown at a nightclub. The next day, Clemons’ brother, Jerry, was slain in a drive-by shooting at West 14th and Canal streets.

Green is also eligible for the death penalty in the killing of Clemons.

FLORIDA -Timothy Wayne Fletcher receives death penalty for 2009 murder for the murder of Helen Googe

OCTOBER 13, 2012 http://staugustine.com

Timothy Wayne Fletcher took his time shuffling toward the bench Friday, perhaps wondering if they would be his last shackled steps before becoming a condemned man.

About 40 minutes later, his fears were confirmed.

Judge Wendy Berger cited the heinous nature of his crime before handing Fletcher, 28, a sentence of death for the murder of Helen Googe in April 2009.

“The aggravating factors far outweigh the mitigating circumstances,” Berger said.

In fact, Berger went further, saying the aggravating factor of the crime being “heinous, atrocious and cruel” by itself was enough to outweigh the 15 mitigating factors that she outlined before giving her sentencing ruling.

Describing the crime, Berger said she gave great weight to the testimony of doctors about the horrible experience of a victim being strangled to death as Googe was. She mentioned the testimony’s indication of the victim’s consciousness at the time of the strangulation. Berger made a point of the physician’s statement that the victim surely experienced a sense of impending doom.“There can be no doubt this murder was conscious and pitiless,” Berger said.

By the time Berger had given her ruling, Fletcher had been standing in front of the courtroom next to attorney Garry Wood, listening to the judge detail the horrors of the crime and then the aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

When it was finished, Fletcher’s eyes were red, and his face clearly bore the weight of the decision, but he showed no other emotion and said nothing in front of the court. The courtroom, crowded with law enforcement officers and family members, remained mostly silent, even after the sentence was announced.

Fletcher’s hearing wrapped up the two-defendant case. The co-defendant, Doni Ray Brown, accepted an offer of life in prison with no possibility for parole and entered a plea of no contest for first-degree murder.

Brown and Fletcher broke out of jail in Putnam County on April 15, 2009, stole a vehicle and then went to the home of Googe to rob her.

When she claimed not to have the large amount of cash the men were demanding, they beat her and eventually strangled her.

Fletcher and Brown fled the state but were later apprehended when they returned to Florida.

Berger noted that in interviews with investigators, Fletcher had repeatedly denied being the one who actually committed the murder, blaming it on Brown. He eventually admitted to holding Googe down while Brown finished the killing.

In no way did that absolve Fletcher from the full responsibility of the crime, the state argued.

“It is clear from the facts of this case that the defendant showed no mercy to the victim during the brutally violent robbery and murder,” State Attorney R.J. Larizza said in a statement. “It is fitting that he received no mercy from the court when he was sentenced today.”

The death penalty was sought because Fletcher was the mastermind of the escape and robbery.

The forensic evidence also implicated Fletcher in the struggle with Googe before her death.

“It was the defendant, not Doni Brown, with scratches on his arms,” Berger said. “It was the defendant who killed her.”

Before Berger started reading her decision, Wood mentioned the Brown sentencing and said that Fletcher would have accepted a similar offer if one had been offered before trial.

Berger said that she gave Brown’s sentence “great weight” in deciding Fletcher’s fate. In fact, it was the only mitigating factor that she gave more than moderate weight to.

Among the issues she considered were Fletcher’s long-term substance abuse problems, his dysfunctional family life and behavior at his original trial.

In May, a jury found Fletcher guilty on all counts as charged in the murder of Googe and the crimes related to the defendant’s jail escape in April 2009. Fletcher was found guilty of escape, a second-degree felony; grand theft motor vehicle, a third-degree felony; first-degree murder, a capital felony; home invasion robbery, a first-degree felony; and grand theft motor vehicle, a third-degree felony.

On Friday, Putnam County Circuit Judge Carlos Mendoza sentenced Brown, 26, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Brown pleaded no contest.