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Supreme Court Won’t Hear Nine Mile Road Popeye’s Murder Case
May 23, 2017
Bolstering a state law requiring unanimous jury recommendations in death penalty cases, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider an appeal by Attorney General Pam Bondi on the issue.
The court’s decision to deny what is known as a “writ of certiorari” essentially cements a state law enacted this year in response to a seminal Florida Supreme Court decision in a case involving convicted murderer Timothy Lee Hurst.
That Florida Supreme Court ruling and the subsequent law said juries need to make unanimous recommendations before judges can sentence defendants to death. As is common, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday did not give reasons for turning down Bondi’s appeal of the Florida Supreme Court ruling.
“It would be hard to read exactly what exactly the U.S. Supreme Court meant by it, except that it will probably end most of the state’s litigation with regard to these issues,” said Pete Mills, an assistant state attorney in the 10th Judicial Circuit who also serves as chairman of the Florida Public Defenders Association Death Penalty Steering Committee.
Hurst, who was sent to Death Row for a 1998 murder in Pensacola, has been at the center of two major rulings that found Florida’s death-penalty sentencing system unconstitutional.
In an appeal by Hurst, the U.S. Supreme Court early last year struck down the state’s system of allowing judges, instead of juries, to find the facts necessary to impose the death penalty. The court found the state’s system was an unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury, and sent the case back to the Florida Supreme Court.
At the time of the January 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Florida’s system allowed jurors by a simple majority to recommend the death penalty. Judges would then make findings of fact that “sufficient” aggravating factors, not outweighed by mitigating circumstances, existed for the death sentence to be imposed, a process known as “weighing.”
Florida lawmakers in 2016 hurriedly rewrote the law to address the U.S. Supreme Court decision, requiring jurors to unanimously find that at least one aggravating factor exists before a defendant can be eligible for a death sentence and requiring that at least 10 of 12 jurors recommend death for the sentence to be imposed.
In October, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the statute was unconstitutional because it did not require unanimous jury recommendations about imposing the death penalty, something not addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Bondi’s office in December asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the Florida court’s ruling.
In its request for discretionary review, the state argued that Florida court’s “expansive reading” of the U.S. court’s decision in the Hurst case was erroneous.
Hurst was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Nine Mile Road Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than 60 times. Her body was found in a freezer.
A jury in 2000 recommended the death penalty for Hurst, now 38. After the state Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing hearing, a jury recommended death by a vote of 7-5 in 2012.
In its October ruling in the Hurst case deciding that death-penalty recommendations must be unanimous, the Florida Supreme Court relied both on state and federal constitutional guarantees to the right to a trial by jury.
The Florida court decision regarding unanimity will likely result in new penalty-phase hearings for about 55 percent of Florida’s 386 Death Row inmates.
The state court has already ordered new sentencing hearings for numerous cases involving non-unanimous jury recommendations, and Monday’s decision by the federal court takes the unanimity issue off the table, according to defense lawyers.
“It’s certainly good news for Mr. Hurst,” said Dave Davis, a recently retired assistant public defender in the 2nd Judicial Circuit who represented Hurst.
Davis and other public defenders, who warned lawmakers that the lack of unanimity in the 2016 law would not withstand court scrutiny, were relieved but not surprised by the U.S. court’s refusal to take up the case Monday.
With more than 100 cases poised to be sent back to lower courts, prosecutors are now faced with seeking capital punishment or life imprisonment. Some of the cases are decades old, posing problems with witnesses and evidence for prosecutors.
“Prosecutors are going to have to decide is it worth the effort to try to get death again. They’re going to have to examine their evidence … and decide what the likelihood is that they’re going to get 12 jurors to decide death,” Davis said.
The new requirement is especially relevant in the Hurst case, where a jury has never unanimously recommended the death penalty, Davis pointed out.
“Prosecutors have a tough problem here,” he said. “Some cases just get old. Can you find witnesses in a case that’s 14 or 15 years old? … Logistical and practical problems that crop up with cases that are in some cases 20 years old.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Comments
13 Responses to “Supreme Court Won’t Hear Nine Mile Road Popeye’s Murder Case”
Low IQ … give me a break. He must have been smart enough to hold down a job. He must have been smart enough to plan a robbery. He must have been smart enough to plan out the slicing up his co-worker and throw her in the freezer. . Hurst needs to be 6 ft. under.
Mike you are so right!!! Did this victim have the opportunity for a fair trial..oh NO SHE WAS NOT Giving a chance to live and speak against her defender cause this trash took her life. To me once a dirt bag like this has been found guilty by the people of our community then they did what was asked of them. When it comes to the sentence phase of the trial you can give the jury the opportunity to come to an agreement on life or death but if they all can’t agreement on the punishment then it is only right that a Judge be giving the right to make the decision. He is the Judge and should make the final decision if the jury can’t. This MURDERER is still killing and the courts are letting him. Every year he is alive and breathing her family is having to live this all over again. My heart goes out to her family and I will be praying for you!!
I remember reading somewhere that his IQ was in the low 70’s. That makes him borderline intellectual functioning, and he has plenty of IQ points to understand right from wrong provided his parents taught it to him. I know he was taught in school. I worked with kids like this guy for several years before moving to corrections, and his IQ is the LAST excuse I would have bought had I been a juror on his case. He needs to go. The gene pool does need cleansing from time to time, and this is one of them.
I am so glad Anne was not a juror. The man would be running free today. Our Judicial System thinks like her. It’s okay to have a reason to kill because his brain dead senseless mind says it’s okay to kill. He deserves nothing more in life but a hole between his eyes.
Yet, our hard earned money pays for these varmits to sit in air conditioning all day and twiddle their thumbs. And the families of these victims and their small children hold their hands and cry all day. My prayers go out to the victim’s family and you too Anne.
@anne 1 of 2— ARE YOU SERIOUS !? I don’t need to head to a library. So his IQ is borderline, so what ! It wouldn’t matter if he were a bonafide moron. I bet he doesn’t put his hand on a hot stove. Bet he pees in the toilet. And bet he wipes when he poops. So he can learn which tells me he’s smart enough to know he was doing wrong (before) premeditatively killing that poor lady.
Besides that, it’s not just about punishment, it’s about deterring further crimes. Like whipping a child, it’s supposed to hurt so they don’t do it again. Bleed your heart out.
…….one thing for sure…his I.Q. has to be more than Annes…to stab a co-worket 60 times..and stuff her in a freezer..he does not deserve to even breathe the air another day..much less 30 more years…system very flawed…
If his trial were held today he would not be on death row. There were many things which caused him to kill the woman. Let’s start with his low IQ, head down to the library and read about him. I said did not want to be on that jury and the judge excused me. The death penalty never brings the deceased victim back. and It will never OK to kill.
If Mr. Davis and all the other people who are against the death penalty would have to pay directly themselves for the care and feeding of the death-row inmates, then the cases could go to execution much quicker. Some other countries require the convict’s family to bring food or pay to keep the guy alive. But no, Mr. Davis knows that ALL taxpayers are paying for the prison system. But it’s really not the money. It’s the evil of the crime that needs to be punished. Every convicted murderer needs to be executed in a manner similar to how they killed their victims. Let the criminal community know that their execution will be just as painful as the evil they do to others. These ruling by the judges, state and federal, have given a victory to murderers and their evil.
No mercy shown by the defendant. None is deserved by him. If he’s able to kill, he’s able to suffer the consequences. What happened to the victims rights??? This is a miss carriage of justice.
The system sucks. If ever there were anyone deserving of the death penalty, it’s this guy. His crime is the very definition of what requires a sentence of death. So the very small deterrent the death penalty may have been is long gone. Thanks you stinking filthy lawyers and judges.
Time to give this Dirt Bag a dirt nap He has cost the people enough money in escambia county
Makes me sick that this killer is still torturing the victims family with his appeals. He showed no mercy for his victim. Time to stop delaying his sentence.
The Public needs to know just what all this useless man done to the victim in this case to truly understand why we have the Death Sentence. If there was one convicted person that needs to already have been executed, it would be this loser. My thoughts go out to the victims family and friends for even having to read/watch the crap he’s stirred over his punishment for his crimes. Thanks, MikeAmerson