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Florida Executes Man For 1991 Murders
November 9, 2017
After the failure of last-ditch appeals, Death Row inmate Patrick Hannon was executed Wednesday night for the 1991 murders of two men in Hillsborough County.
Hannon, 53, died of lethal injection at 8:50 p.m. at Florida State Prison, according to the state Department of Corrections. The execution, originally scheduled for 6 p.m., took place after the U.S. Supreme Court issued two decisions rejecting appeals.
Earlier, Hannon’s attorneys had sought a stay of execution at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They argued, at least in part, that new state death-penalty requirements related to the unanimity of juries should apply to his case.
But a three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based appeals court rejected Hannon’s argument, pointing to precedent from a case this year in which the state executed Death Row inmate Cary Michael Lambrix. That precedent, which stemmed from a Florida Supreme Court ruling, effectively said the new sentencing requirements should not be applied to cases before 2002.
“There (in the Lambrix case), we held that jurists of reason would not find debatable the Florida Supreme Court’s rejection of the claim that the nonretroactive application of Florida’s new sentencing statute violates the Equal Protection Clause, the Due Process Clause, or the Eighth Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution),” said the ruling by appeals-court judges Stanley Marcus, William Pryor and Beverly Martin.
Gov. Rick Scott in October scheduled the Wednesday execution of Hannon, who was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Brandon Snider and Robert Carter.
Hannon and two other men went to the apartment where Snider and Carter lived on Jan. 10, 1991. After one of the other men attacked and stabbed Snider, Hannon was accused of cutting Snider’s throat, according to court documents. Hannon was then accused of fatally shooting Carter, who had tried to hide under a bed.
The appeals-court ruling Wednesday was rooted in a series of legal and legislative decisions that began in January 2016, when the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida’s death-penalty sentencing system unconstitutional. The crux of the U.S. Supreme Court decision was that the system gave too much power to judges, instead of juries, in sentencing people to death.
Resulting Florida Supreme Court rulings and legislation now require juries to unanimously recommend the death penalty before judges can impose death sentences. Juries also are required to unanimously agree on critical findings before death sentences can be imposed.
The Florida Supreme Court made the new sentencing requirements apply to cases since 2002. That is when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling known as Ring v. Arizona that was a premise for striking down Florida’s death-penalty sentencing system in 2016.
A jury unanimously recommended that Hannon be put to death, but it is not clear whether jurors unanimously agreed on any of the critical findings.
While agreeing Wednesday on the precedent issue, Martin wrote a concurring opinion that said Hannon’s scheduled execution was a “stark illustration of the problems with Florida’s retroactivity rule.”
“No one disputes that he was sentenced to death by a process we now recognize as unconstitutional,” Martin wrote. “Neither does anyone dispute that others who were sentenced to death under those same unconstitutional procedures are eligible for resentencing under Florida’s new law. The Florida Supreme Court’s retroactivity analysis therefore leaves the difference between life and death to turn on `either fatal or fortuitous accidents of timing.’ ”
by Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida
Comments
8 Responses to “Florida Executes Man For 1991 Murders”
Most exonerated prisoners were cleared via DNA testing that wasn’t around back then…Now if they are guilty and its proven…let the punishment take place quick and fast…Enough with the baby the criminal mentality…
REGARDING:
“Cant wait for people to die?
Time limits for the death execution?”
As fellow Baptist, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:
“We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” ”
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
With an ancient history including the Magna Carta of 1215, clause 40 of which reads, “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.”
The Innocence Project tries to show the danger of convicting and killing innocent people. The fact that they have exonerated any actually makes it less likely. Improved genetic testing makes false convictions less likely. Therefore, killing only killers is more likely. Some convictions don’t hinge on DNA, though, and exonerations are harder to get in those cases.
“As a percentage of all death sentences, that’s just 1.6 percent. But if the innocence rate is 4.1 percent, more than twice the rate of exoneration, the study suggests what most people assumed but dreaded: An untold number of innocent people have been executed.”
So, with improved forensics, probability of false convictions drops even lower than an already-low 1.6%. There is definitely no reason to assume it is higher, like 4% for example.
Nobody wants to hurt innocent people. This includes those innocent people killed by released killers. Lawyers understand the convicted are actually guilty, so they concentrate on other ways to release their clients. (They don’t really care about guilt, just their clients.)
David for time viewers and brain scanners
Cant wait for people to die?
Time limits for the death execution?
Pleeease……
Since 1973, 144 people on death row have been exonerated. As a percentage of all death sentences, that’s just 1.6 percent. But if the innocence rate is 4.1 percent, more than twice the rate of exoneration, the study suggests what most people assumed but dreaded: An untold number of innocent people have been executed.
156 individuals have been exonerated from death row–that is, found to be innocent and released – since 1973. In other words, for every 10 people who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., one person has been set free.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row
REGARDING:
“EVERY convicted murderer should be executed within 10 years by a method similar to how they killed their victims.”
Nah, that would be wrong. People should never torture anything or one. If you think he needs to die, you should do so as kindly as possible. I suggest a mixture of 5% Carbon Dioxide and 95% Nitrogen. No pain, no mess, no expensive chemicals to buy and no calling on anyone to commit torture.
David for good gas — and certainty
With few exceptions all of those on death row when the clock finally ticks down they WANT TO LIVE – something they didn’t think about when THEY MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD…
EVERY convicted murderer should be executed within 10 years by a method similar to how they killed their victims. When a unanimous jury is required, fewer murders will be executed and the prison population will increase. Will the opponents of capital punishment offer to pay all of the increased cost? No. They want all taxpayers to bear the increased cost.
Open an express lane
It is not justice to have to jump through so many hoops to rightfully execute a murderer.