Let Us Pray: Services Held For National Day Of Prayer
May 6, 2016
Atmore marked the National Day of Prayer Thursday with several events, drawing the faithful and pastors from Alabama and Florida. A prayer walk was held at Atmore City Hall, followed by prayer at the Veterans Memorial. A community prayer service and Bible reading was held Thursday afternoon in the Cornell Torrence Gym at Escambia County High School.
For a photo gallery from the event, click here.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Obama Grants Early Release For Three Locals
May 6, 2016
Thursday, President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentenced of 58 people, including three from Escambia County:
Christopher Gulley – Offense: Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and cocaine base; Sentence: Life imprisonment; 10 years’ supervised release (June 12, 1996).
Larry Lewis – Offense: Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and cocaine base; possession with intent to distribute cocaine; possession with intent to distribute cocaine base; Sentence: 360 months’ imprisonment; 10 years’ supervised release; $1,000 fine (October 20, 1999); amended to 324 months’ imprisonment (June 18, 2006); amended to 262 months’ imprisonment (July 2, 2015)
David Anthony Trotter – Offense: Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. Sentence: Life imprisonment; 10 years’ supervised release (October 15, 1993)
Gulley and Trotter will be released on September 2, while Lewis is set for release on May 5, 2017.
Florida Driver’s License System Down This Weekend
May 6, 2016
Drivers might want to act quickly if their licenses are set to expire in the next few days.
Floridians will not be able to renew their licenses this weekend, as the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles moves computer hardware from one government building in Tallahassee to another. The system will be affected from 8 p.m. Friday through 8 a.m. Monday.
Services will be unavailable for people who visit local tax collectors for renewals, as well as for people trying to get new IDs online.
Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles spokeswoman Beth Frady said the computer system should only be down for the weekend.
“Anyone whose credentials, registrations, ID cards, driver’s licenses … anything that expires from the department, it could impact them,” Frady said. “So, not everyone necessarily, but if you are set to expire, it will absolutely impact you.”
The move of the computer hardware comes as the state relocates about 1,500 employees from an office complex where the equipment has been housed. The relocation is due to allegations that poor environmental conditions in the complex have led to health problems for some workers.
“Monday morning, we are expected to be fully operational,” Frady said. “We are going to have teams working throughout the weekend to make sure all the testing and everything goes as planned.”
New Century Correctional Institution Officer Recruits Graduate
May 6, 2016
Several new Century Correctional Institution recruits recently graduated from Basic Recruit Class. The new correctional officers are (front, L-R) Amanda Day, Justin Simpson, Harmony Thomas, Claudero Riley and John Patrick. Also pictured are (back, L-R) Warden Bryant, Major Marshall, Major DeLapp and Officer deGraaf. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Powerball Jackpot Grows To $415 Million
May 6, 2016
The Powerball jackpot has rolled 18 times since the March 5 drawing, resulting in an estimated $415 million jackpot for Saturday night’s drawing – among the 10 largest evver. The jackpot prize cash option value is $269.7 million. Pictured: A Powerball billboard teases the $415 prize Thursday on Highway 97 at the Alabama-Florida state line south of Atmore. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Supreme Court Weighs Nine Mile Popeyes Death Penalty Case
May 6, 2016
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments in a key case that led to an overhaul of the state’s death-penalty sentencing system and could have sweeping implications for the 390 inmates awaiting execution in Florida.
The case involves Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of a fast-food worker on Nine Mile Road in Pensacola.
Hurst was the plaintiff in an appeal that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that Florida’s system of allowing judges — and not juries — to decide whether defendants should face death equates to an unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
Lawmakers hurriedly overhauled the death-penalty sentencing system this winter to address the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Since the January ruling, the Florida Supreme Court has been grappling with the impact of the decision on Death Row inmates like Hurst. Lawyers for the prisoners contend that Florida law requires the death sentences be reduced to life in prison without parole. Prosecutors argue that the court should consider the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a case-by-case basis.
David Davis, a Leon County assistant public defender representing Hurst, argued Thursday that the new law overhauling the sentencing system should not apply to Hurst and that his client must be resentenced to life behind bars.
Echoing arguments made by a group of legal luminaries in a brief filed in Hurst’s case this week, Davis relied on a 1972 statute which provides that “in the event the death penalty in a capital felony is held to be unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court,” the court having jurisdiction over a person previously sentenced to death “shall sentence such person to life imprisonment.”
That law came in anticipation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case known as Furman v. Georgia, which resulted in a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty and led to the commutation of all death sentences in Florida to life in prison without parole.
Justice Peggy Quince noted that the decades-old law deals only with decisions regarding the death penalty itself, not the process involving sentencing.
“The Supreme Court (in the Hurst ruling) did not say that the death penalty was unconstitutional. It said the Florida procedure was unconstitutional. Isn’t that a difference?” she asked Davis.
But Davis said the law links the procedure and the penalty.
“It’s sort of like a symbiotic relationship. You can’t have one without the other. It’s sort of like having a bag full of bullets without a gun. They don’t do you any good unless you have the gun. In this case, unless you have this procedure, you don’t have the death penalty,” he said.
The 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Hurst case dealt with the sentencing phase of death-penalty cases after defendants are found guilty, and it focused on what are known as aggravating circumstances that must be determined before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determinations of such aggravating circumstances must be made by juries, not judges.
Under Florida’s new law, juries will have to unanimously determine “the existence of at least one aggravating factor” before defendants can be eligible for death sentences. The law also requires at least 10 jurors to recommend the death penalty in order for the sentence to be imposed, and it did away with a feature of the old law that had allowed judges to override juries’ recommendations of life in prison instead of death.
Justice Barbara Pariente, who earlier this year called reliance on the 1972 law a “fallacious” argument, questioned why Hurst should not be resentenced under the new law.
Davis said that, by applying the new law retroactively, “you’ve essentially ignored” the law that requires the sentences to be reduced.
“So you think the Legislature intended to provide a gap and give all the defendants that had previously been sentenced to death a life sentence? You think that is even remotely the case?” Pariente said.
Assistant Attorney General Carine Mitz argued that the “plain language” of the 1972 law is clear.
“It doesn’t say the death penalty statute. It doesn’t say Florida’s death penalty statute. It specifically says the death penalty,” Mitz said.
The justices also focused much of Thursday’s hearing on the issue of “harmless error,” a legal term meaning that any other jury would come to the same conclusion.
Hurst was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than 60 times. Her body was found in a freezer of the Nine Mile Road restaurant.
The jury in the Hurst case recommended a death sentence to the judge, but its vote was split seven to five.
Davis argued that harmless error does not apply in Hurst’s case because “there was no jury verdict” on his death sentence.
“Harmless error analysis presumes that you have a legal verdict. In this case, we don’t. It was just merely a recommendation. We don’t know what factors the jury found. … And not only that, we don’t know what weight they gave to them. So the whole harmless error idea just falls apart,” Davis told reporters after the hearing.
But Mitz said that any jury would return the same recommendation when reconsidering the circumstances of Hurst’s case.
Justice Charles Canady stepped in to support Mitz’s arguments.
“Based on the facts, isn’t there a strong case, that you’re trying to make, that any rational jury necessarily would have found those two aggravators on which the trial court relied in imposing the sentence?” he asked.
Pariente and Quince also expressed concerns about the constitutionality of Florida’s new death penalty law, at least in part because it only requires juries to decide that one aggravating factor exists for the death penalty to be imposed.
“The worst thing would be … a new statute that has constitutional infirmities that we then are applying across all these prosecutions and 10 years from now we end up with another 100, 200 people on Death Row, and no one gets to what the state wants, which is to have the worst of the worst executed,” Pariente said.
But Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican who is a former prosecutor, said in a telephone interview that the state’s new law is firm.
“If one looks at the Florida Supreme Court’s treatment of death penalty cases, it’s obvious that it is a liberal court that doesn’t like the death penalty. Therefore, it’s not surprising that they will look to pick apart and find flaws in what should be obviously a constitutional statute that conforms to what the U.S. Supreme Court has done,” he said.
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Pensacola Wins Second Straight Over Biloxi
May 6, 2016
Pensacola Blue Wahoos third baseman Eric Jagielo came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs in an 0-20 slump and hitting .146.
All Jagielo did was launch a grand slam into the right field Hill-Kelly Dodge berm to lead the Blue Wahoos to its second straight victory, 8-1, over the Biloxi Shuckers in front of 4,065 at Blue Wahoos Stadium.
Jagielo, the Cincinnati Reds No. 14 prospect according to MLB.com, last got a hit 10 days ago on April 25 against the Jackson Generals.
His four RBIs were his first since he drove in two on April 11 against the Mississippi Braves in the Blue Wahoos home opener five-game series. Jagielo now has two homers and nine RBIs this season for Pensacola.
Jagielo, who was selected in the first round by the New York Yankees in the 2013 draft, played 58 games last year at Double-A before surgery to repair his right knee. The Yankees traded him to the Reds as part of the deal in December for closer Aroldis Chapman.
Jagielo said his talk with Hall of Fame shortstop Barry Larkin before the game and hitting a bucket of balls helped him get in a groove Thursday.
“It was good to get a little time to work on my swing, especially with a guy like Barry,” he said. “It’s cool to learn stuff from guys like him and then apply it to my game.”
Pensacola leads Biloxi 2-0 in this five-gamehome stand and now is 16-11 on the season. The first-place Shuckers fell to 17-9 with Pensacola one a 1.5 game back.
Just like the night before, Biloxi scored first when right fielder Brett Phillips scored from third on a passed ball that rolled to the backstop, putting the Shuckers up, 1-0. With runners on second and third and one out, Pensacola right-hander Jackson Stephens then struck out the next two batters to get out of the inning.
Blue Wahoos Stephens worked six innings and retired the last 10 batters he faced. He gave up one run that was unearned and struck out five. He improved to 2-2 on the season with a 3.95 ERA.
In addition, Stephens also got his first professional hit in his fifth season in the minors with a grounder to left field to lead off the second inning.
“The first inning he had that little blip but he really did a nice job,” said Pensacola manager Pat Kelly.
Pensacola’s relievers Matt Magill and Wandy Peralta then held Biloxi hitless over the final three innings and struck out six batters.
Kelly was also impressed by Magill, who pitched two innings and struck out three.
“Magill looked really impressive and had really good stuff,” Kelly said. “He had a really sharp slider tonight.”
Pensacola also got production from second baseman Alex Blandino, who was 0-15 in his last four games, striking out seven times.
He also spoke with Larkin about hitting Thursday before going out and clobbering his first home run of the year a solo homer to left field. Blandino also hit a double and single in four at bats, scoring two runs and knocking in three. The two talked about getting back to basics at the plate.
“Whenever you can speak to a Hall of Famer on a daily basis, you’re bound to get better,” Blandino said. “He always has good, positive things to say.”
Win Tickets To The Tate FFA Rodeo; Rodeo Begins Tonight
May 6, 2016
NorthEscambia.com is giving our readers a chance to win free tickets to the Tate FFA Alumni Foundation Rodeo this weekend at the Escambia County Equestrian Center.
To enter to win, look for the Tate Rodeo poster for Friday on our Facebook page (click here) and share before 2 p.m.. It’s that easy.
Tuesday’s ticket winner was Joe Baillie.
Wednesday’s winner was Keevan Pugh.
Thursday’s winner was Hailey Colvin.
The Tate Rodeo beings at 7:30 p.m. both Friday and Saturday. Advance tickets are available at Farm and Nursery Mart, Hill Kelly Dodge, Farm Bureau Insurance (Nine Mile and Molino), Jimmy’s Grill, and Barnes Ace Hardware. Tickets are $8 for adults and $3 for children in advance and $10 and $5 at the gate.
There is also a Special Rodeo for special needs children on Saturday at 9 a.m. A pancake breakfast will be held prior to the Special Rodeo at 8 a.m.
For more information about the Rodeo, call (850) 937-2308.
Along The North Escambia Trail With A Wagon Train
May 5, 2016
The scene Wednesday very well could have been a postcard snapshot of Molino in the 1800’s. Blue skies with a few puffy white clouds floating along in a gentle breeze, piney woods along the road with the melody of birds singing.
There was the sound of horseshoes — clump, clump, clump — and of chains rattling used to connect horses, mules and tack to handcrafted wagons. This was a real wagon train, over a half dozen strong with outriders for protection.
But this was May 2016. And in our modern zip-zip fast paced world, wagon trains tend to draw a bit of attention. And that is the point on the annual wagon train ride to the Tate High School FFA Rodeo. The ride started Saturday in Monroe County, AL. It ends Friday night at the Escambia County Equestrian Center in Pensacola for Tate FFA Rodeo’s Grand Parade.
It’s a nearly 25 year old tradition started by the late Selmer Thompson with a ride from Barrineau Park to Pensacola. This year is the fifth week long event.
At just two horsepower, or mule-power each, it’s slow ride with a top speed of about three or four mph that provides the opportunity to take in the surroundings. And to be neighborly, speaking and waving to the bystanders that gather along the highways or in their yards to watch the unique picture of Americana pass by.
“This is a great way to travel,” trail boss Darryl Wilson said. “There’s just nothing like it.”
Catching up with the ride Wednesday afternoon on Crabtree Church Road, our photographer was greeting by the smell of grilled ribs as the group finished up a lunch break before hitting the trail again. There were no escort vehicles, no trucks full of supplies. This was a real deal, old-timey wagon train through the countryside.
But it’s not a total step back into time — some of the wagons have battery powered lights and radios — with country music, of course. One wagon was equipped with a BBQ grill mounted at the rear. No need for a drive-thru when the ride is a self-contained, on the move BBQ house. And, along with big comfortable captain’s chairs, a couple of the wagons even had on-board bathrooms.
“This has been a good ride,” Wilson said. “The weather today has been perfect.”
The group spent Wednesday night camped out near the ballpark on Crabtree Church Road. On Thursday, they will travel south on Highway 99 to Barrineau Park Road and cross over Barrineau Park Road into Baldwin County where they will make camp Thursday night. Then Friday it’s on to the rodeo.
The Tate Rodeo beings at 7:30 p.m. both Friday and Saturday at the Escambia County Equestrian Center. Advance tickets are available at Farm and Nursery Mart, Hill Kelly Dodge, Farm Bureau Insurance (Nine Mile and Molino), Jimmy’s Grill, and Barnes Ace Hardware. Tickets are $8 for adults and $3 for children in advance and $10 and $5 at the gate.
For more information about the Rodeo, call (850) 937-2308.
Pictured top and bottom: A wagon train travels through Molino Wednesday afternoon. Pictured top inset: The view of the driver’s seat. Pictured bottom inset: Pulling out after lunch. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
A Cool 48 For Tonight
May 5, 2016
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 48. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 78. North wind 5 to 10 mph.
Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 52. Northwest wind around 5 mph.
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 81. Northwest wind around 5 mph.
Saturday Night: Clear, with a low around 59. Southwest wind around 5 mph.
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 84. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 61. South wind 5 to 10 mph.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 82.
Monday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 65.
Tuesday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82.
Tuesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 66.
Wednesday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 85.