Bombshell, Competency to Proceed

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Both attorneys are in the courtroom. CA has arrived. Judge Perry is on the bench. He hands the Defense and Prosecution brown envelopes. The defense i s talking to Judge Perry. (We can't hear.)Everyone including court reporter are heading into the judge's chambers.  State/defense attorneys, Perry in back room ,CA at defense table.  Jose Baez and Ann Finnell head back into chambers. Cheney Mason is sitting with CA.
 Casey smiling. She looks pretty happy this morning.


It is 9:11am and the judge is not on the bench. He is usually prompt and mindful of the jurys' time.
Rumor is that Ann Finnel is going to argue for a mistrial and to sit a
 different jury.Ann Finnel is rumored to argue motion fo rmistrial based on new landmark ruling that death penalty sentencing is unconstitutional. Ruling was made in Miami last week. READ HERE.

Posted on Wednesday, 06.22.11

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Courts

Miami federal judge rules Florida’s death penalty unconstitutional

U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez ruled that juries, not judges, should be the ones to determine ‘aggravating factors’ in sentencing criminals to die.

BY DAVID OVALLE

A Miami federal judge ruled Wednesday that the way Florida courts mete out the death penalty is unconstitutional because juries — not judges — should be the ones to spell out which details about the crime justify execution.

U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez ordered that Paul H. Evans, convicted in a 1991 murder-for-hire case in Vero Beach, must receive a new sentencing hearing.

The ruling, likely to be argued in appellate courts for years, does not strike down Florida’s capital-punishment law. But it could force lawmakers to change the statute, and could give recent convicts new avenues for appeal, legal experts say.

“If the case survives appeals, the Florida Legislature is going to have to modify the law to allow jurors to explain why someone deserves the death penalty,” said Miami attorney Terry Lenamon, founder of the Florida Capital Resource Center, a support group for death-penalty defense cases.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, through a spokeswoman, said Wednesday that her office would request a rehearing and appeal the decision.

Martinez was appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush.

LANDMARK RULING

Legal scholars say Martinez’s ruling marks the first time a Florida judge has overturned a death sentence under the U.S. Supreme Court case Ring v. Arizona. In that 2002 ruling, the court held that defendants are entitled to have juries decide on whether any “aggravating factors” in a crime justify enhanced punishment.

Evans was convicted in the 1991 trailer park murder of Alan Pfeiffer. Jurors voted 9-3 for the death penalty in February 1999. The trial judge imposed death, finding that Evans committed the crime for “pecuniary gain” and the murder was “committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner.”

Whether any convicts will be resentenced because of Martinez’s ruling remains to be seen, but the opinion has reignited debate in the Florida legal community over the jury’s role in deciding on the death penalty.

Florida is one of the few states that allow juries to issue death penalty recommendations that are not unanimous. Here, 12-person juries recommend by majority vote whether someone convicted of first-degree murder should be executed. But state jurors do not have to check off on an instruction sheet which reasons contributed to their decision, as jurors are required to do in the rare death penalty case in federal court.

Trial judges in Florida’s state courts have authority to override jury recommendations, although in death penalty cases, they rarely do.

Judge Martinez, in Wednesday’s ruling, said there was no way to know if all nine of the jurors in Evans’ case who voted for death were swayed by the same aggravating factors as the judge. He conceded that jury unanimity may not be constitutionally necessary, but wrote: “… It cannot be that Mr. Evans’ death sentence is constitutional when there is no evidence to suggest that even a simple majority found the existence of any one aggravating circumstance.”

Legal experts say it is unclear how far-reaching Martinez’s ruling will be. The U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld the right of judges to act independently of juries in finding a defendant’s other violent felonies as an aggravating factor in enhancing a sentence. That means the ruling won’t affect the many cases of Death Row inmates who have violent pasts, or were convicted of murder along with other violent felonies.

LIMITED IMPACT

Fort Lauderdale capital litigation appellate attorney Melissa Minsk Donoho said that Martinez’s ruling will have limited impact, but could force the Florida Supreme Court to change jury instructions to include requiring them to rule on the specific aggravators. She said that nevertheless, recently convicted defendants — nearly 30 have been sentenced to death since the 2002 Ring decision — will use Wednesday’s ruling as part of an appeal.

“Anybody convicted after the Ring decision could benefit from this,” Donoho said.

Retired senior Miami-Dade prosecutor David Waksman said he did not think the ruling would affect many cases.

“The death penalty law is 40 years old, and a lot of defendants have gone through federal courts without winning an appeal on this issue,” Waksman said. “The judges in death penalty cases just say there are sufficient facts to support what the jury recommended.”

Wednesday’s ruling comes after two recent high-profile Death Row cases in Miami-Dade.

Last week, Circuit Judge Dennis Murphy rejected a jury’s 8-4 death recommendation for Brandon Rolle, convicted of the 2006 murder of a tourist in Coconut Grove. Murphy, saying the crime was not heinous enough, sentenced Rolle to life in prison.

Earlier this month, Circuit Judge Reemberto Diaz cited an exhaustive list of “heinous, atrocious and cruel” factors in the torture and beating death of Lazaro “Baby Lollipops” Figueroa before sentencing his mother, Ana Maria Cardona, to execution for first-degree murder. In her case, the jury voted 7-5 for the death penalty.

Her defense attorney, Assistant Public Defender Edith Georgi, said Wednesday’s ruling shows the problems inherent in not requiring a unanimous jury recommendation for death.

“It has never made sense to me that it takes a unanimous verdict to send a person to prison but only a majority to send a person to death,” Georgi said. “A single vote can make the difference between life and death. This ruling won’t change things immediately, but it is at least a step in the right direction.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/22/v-fullstory/2279518/miami-federal-judge-floridas-death.html#ixzz1QTjV3RxM

ANN FINNELL -Jacksonville attorney who joined Casey's defense team in September 2010 as a death penalty expert to replace Andrea Lyon.






Defense emerges from meeting but state remains behind closed doors.
0937> Judge Perry is on the bench .


The defense issued "competency to proceed." The court  appointed  3 physicians. Casey was  examined on Saturday and Sunday. She is determined by three psychiatrists to be competent to proceed. Her exam record will be sealed.
Both sides say they have cleared up any issues with Dr. Kenneth Furton

\Casey hears she is competant to continue with trial.