{"id":449,"date":"2018-09-07T10:18:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T14:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpetersburgsexcrimeslawyer.com\/?p=449"},"modified":"2024-09-06T12:28:50","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T16:28:50","slug":"florida-high-court-affirms-death-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpetersburgcriminalattorney.net\/blog\/florida-high-court-affirms-death-sentence\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida High Court Affirms Death Sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The defendant in this case was convicted for the first-degree murder of a correctional officer while he was an inmate in a correctional institution. He was sentenced to the death penalty. This appeal was based on a case that was decided after the defendant was convicted. In a case called <em>Hurst<\/em>, it was found unconstitutional for defendants to be sentenced to death when the sentence is not reached by a unanimous jury verdict. It also addressed the use of aggravating factors. This case relies on that precedent to argue that the defendant here should also not be sentenced to death.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Aggravating Factors<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Florida death penalty laws are somewhat complicated. As part of the decision to penalize someone with death, the jury must consider certain aggravating and mitigating factors. Obviously, aggravating factors weigh toward a sentence of death and mitigating factors do not. Here, the court gave five different aggravating factors great or very great weight. They were: that the defendant was convicted of a felony before, and the felony involved violence, the crime was intended to disrupt a lawful governmental function, it was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and it was cold, calculated, and premeditated. Conversely, the court found no statutory mitigating factors and eight non-statutory mitigating factors that were given little to some weight.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stpetersburgcriminalattorney.net\/blog\/florida-high-court-affirms-death-sentence\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Florida High Court Affirms Death Sentence\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The defendant in this case was convicted for the first-degree murder of a correctional officer while he was an inmate in a correctional institution. He was sentenced to the death penalty. This appeal was based on a case that was decided after the defendant was convicted. In a case called Hurst, it was found unconstitutional [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sentencing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Florida High Court Affirms Death Sentence &#8212; St. Petersburg Criminal Lawyer Blog &#8212; September 7, 2018<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The defendant in this case was convicted for the first-degree murder of a correctional officer while he was an inmate in a correctional institution. He &#8212; September 7, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stpetersburgcriminalattorney.net\/blog\/florida-high-court-affirms-death-sentence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Florida High Court Affirms Death Sentence &#8212; St. Petersburg Criminal Lawyer Blog &#8212; September 7, 2018\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The defendant in this case was convicted for the first-degree murder of a correctional officer while he was an inmate in a correctional institution. He &#8212; September 7, 2018\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.stpetersburgcriminalattorney.net\/blog\/florida-high-court-affirms-death-sentence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"St. Petersburg Criminal Lawyer Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-07T14:18:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-06T16:28:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Florida High Court Affirms Death Sentence &#8212; St. Petersburg Criminal Lawyer Blog &#8212; September 7, 2018","description":"The defendant in this case was convicted for the first-degree murder of a correctional officer while he was an inmate in a correctional institution. 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