Comment: I was
extremely happy to hear this news that the Florida Supreme Court rejected 25
Death Penalty appeals, it was a little bit of consolation after hearing that
Governor Daniel Malloy had signed the bill to abolish capital punishment on
Wednesday 25 April 2012. I am grateful that he is not another Pat Quinn who
emptied Death Row in Illinois, as Connecticut's repeal of capital punishment is
not retroactive, and the 11 inmates currently on the state's Death Row may
still be executed, and those convicted of capital crimes committed before the
date in which the repeal went into effect may still be subject to capital
punishment.
However, I
hope the Florida courts do not let these killers spent decades on Death Row.
They need to speed up the execution.
Before reading the link below, I
will type out a quote:
Nothing
shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard
for the sanctity of human life. And it is this same atrophy of moral fiber that
appears in the plea for the abolition of the death penalty. It is the sanctity
of life that validates the death penalty for the crime of murder. It is the
sense of this sanctity that constrains the demand for the infliction of this
penalty. The deeper our regard for life the firmer will be our hold upon the
penal sanction which the violation of that sanctity merit. (Page 122
of Principles of Conduct) -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/26/2770616/florida-supreme-court-rejects.html
Florida Supreme Court
Florida Supreme Court rejects 25 Death Penalty appeals
25
men, including five convicted in Miami-Dade, had asked the Florida Supreme
Court to toss their sentences.
By DAVID OVALLE
Posted on Friday, 04.27.12
The
Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected appeals by 25 men on Death Row,
including five from Miami-Dade, who claimed that their lawyers were ineffective
in investigating their backgrounds before sentencing.
The
rulings were no surprise in the legal community after justices in December
issued an opinion rejecting an appeal by a Pinellas County triple murderer who
sought to have his death penalty sentence tossed out for the same reason.
Combined,
the Miami-Dade men have spent 131 years on Death Row awaiting execution. They
are:
• Guillermo
Arbalaez, 54, sentenced to death in 1991.
In
1988, he killed Julio Rivas, the 5-year-old son of his girlfriend. Upset
because he saw her with another man, Arbalaez strangled Julio and hurled him
from a bridge.
• Victor
Tony Jones, 50, sentenced to death in 1993. Jones stabbed an elderly couple to
death inside their Miami-Dade office in December 1990. He is appealing
federally.
• Norman
Parker Jr., 67, sentenced to death in 1981. After his conviction for murder,
Parker escaped custody and killed Julio Chavez in a Miami drug deal turned
deadly in July 1978. Parker recently died in prison of natural causes.
• Harry
Franklin Phillips, 67, sentenced to death in 1984. The convict shot and killed
parole supervisor Bjorn Svenson in August 1982 in a North Miami-Dade parking
lot. He is appealing federally.
• William
Lee Thompson, 60, sentenced to death in 1978. Thompson and another man raped a
woman with a chair leg, burned her with cigarettes and whipped her for hours
with a chain-link belt — all because she failed to borrow enough money from her
mother to give to them.
In
Florida, juries in death penalty cases preside over a guilt phase and a
separate penalty phase, in which lawyers generally present evidence about their
client’s past and explain why the defendant should not be executed.
The
men had appealed their convictions after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010 tossed
out the death sentence for George Porter, 80, who was sentenced to execution
for the 1986 fatal shootings of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.
The
court tossed out the death sentencing, ruling that Porter’s defense attorney
should have investigated his background to prove “mitigating evidence” why the
man should be spared.
Jurors
never heard that Porter had been wounded and fought valiantly during the Korean
War. He was later resentenced to life in prison.
Another
Death Row inmate, Jason Dirk Walton, convicted of killing three people during a
1982 robbery in Pinellas County, asked Florida justices to throw out his
sentence in light of Porter’s case.
But
the Florida Supreme Court in December ruled that Walton had already asked — and
been denied — a claim of “ineffective assistance of counsel” and the Porter
decision was not retroactive.
Justices
cited the Walton decision in denying the 25 men in separate rulings on
Thursday.
“We
believe the Court’s decision in Walton was sound and are pleased that the
convictions in these cases will not be disturbed,” Jenn Meale, a spokeswoman
for the Florida Attorney General’s office, said Thursday.
