Florida Supreme Court Vacates, Upholds Death Penalty Convictions

Florida's death chamber

The Florida Supreme Court has reversed the murder convictions of Ralph Wright Jr. Wright had been convicted of the 2007 murder of a Pinellas County woman and her son.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that there was no direct evidence tying Wright to the murders. Wright was an Air Force officer stationed in Tampa. He met Paula O'Connor and later allegedly had his son. 

Wright denies the child was his. O'Connor and the boy were found strangled. The court says there's no physical evidence Wright committed the crimes.

Death sentence overturned in James Card case

James Armando Card will be coming back to Bay County for a new sentencing hearing in the coming months after the Supreme Court of Florida overturned his death sentence.

In a 4-3 ruling issued May 4, Justices ruled James Armando Card, 70, should get a new sentencing hearing because his death sentence handed down in June of 1999 was 11-1, and not 12-0.

Card was convicted of the June 3, 1981, kidnapping and murder of Janice Franklin. Card robbed the Western Union office where Franklin worked and kidnapped her. According to testimony during his trials, Card was armed with a knife when he robbed the Western Union office.

During a struggle, Franklin's fingers were severely cut on both hands, almost severing several fingers on her right hand. Card forced Franklin in a car and drove 8 miles to a wooded area where he promised he wouldn't hurt her.

When they got to the wooded area, Card instead came up from behind her, grabbed her hair, pulled her hair back and slit her throat. The cut to her throat was 2 1/2f inches deep according to court testimony. It severed her windpipe and her esophagus and cut into the bone itself.

Card stood over her and watched her bleed. Card and Franklin knew each other and according to the court it was particularly "wicked and vile" because "Franklin knew her attacker, had to suffer during the long drive from the wounds to her hand and must have been traumatized and terrorized during the whole process.... The defendant (Card) told Vicki Elrod that he even enjoyed it."

Up next for Card is DNA testing ordered by the state which is being done by Florida Department of Law Enforcement on evidence from trial. Those results should be back within 8 weeks. A hearing on setting a date for a new penalty phase is set for mid-July.

Card is one of Bay County's longest-tenured members of death row, having been there since 1982. Only Charles Kinney Foster whose been on death row since October of 1975 has been there longer.

Card has already dodged 2 death warrants. Just a day before he was scheduled to die in 1986, the Supreme Court of Florida issued an emergency stay of execution, saying it need to take sufficient time to review new appeals from Card.

On August 18,1987, then-Governor Bob Martinez signed another death warrant, but a district court granted Card another stay of execution on September 16, 1987.

Since that time, another death warrant hasn't been signed for Card.

2 death sentences against Palm Coast killer tossed out

David Snelgrove, now 44, was sentenced to death in 2009 for killing Glyn Fowler, 84, and his wife, Vivian, 79.

The Florida Supreme Court has thrown out two death sentences against a Palm Coast man, who beat and stabbed his elderly neighbors to death 17 years ago, because jurors did not unanimously recommend death.

David Snelgrove, now 44, was sentenced to death in 2009 for killing Glyn Fowler, 84, and his wife, Vivian, 79. The couple lived across the street from Snelgrove in the city's B section. Snelgrove broke into their home in June 2000 to rob them and pawn their jewelry to support his cocaine habit. He beat and stabbed them 38 times.

In Snelgrove's case, jurors recommended death by a vote of 8-4 for each count of 1st-degree murder. Circuit Judge Kim C. Hammond, who has since retired, sentenced Snelgrove to death in 2009.

But the state Supreme Court ruled last year in a case known as Hurst that jurors must unanimously recommend death before a judge can sentence someone to die. The justices ruled that the Hurst decision is retroactive to a 2002 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court known as Ring v. Arizona.

The state Supreme Court cited the non-unanimous jury vote when it vacated Snelgrove's death sentences in the ruling released Thursday and ordered a new sentencing phase. Snelgrove's conviction stands.

Florida legislators were warned after the 2002 Ring decision about flaws in the state's death penalty but lawmakers did not require a unanimous jury vote until this year.

Snelgrove now faces a 3rd sentencing. The one the Supreme Court threw out from 2009 was his 2nd.

A jury convicted Snelgrove in 2002 of the killings. The jury in 2002 voted 7-5 to recommend Snelgrove be put to death, and Hammond sentenced him to death.

But the state Supreme Court in 2005, while upholding his conviction, struck down the death sentences because the jury had provided one sentencing recommendation for both murders.

Snelgrove lived with his aunt and cousin on Bayside Drive in the Indian Trails neighborhood. It was Snelgrove's aunt who realized something was wrong when she spotted newspapers piling up outside the Fowlers' home.

Snelgrove apparently cut himself breaking into the Fowlers' house through a back window. Snelgrove's blood was found throughout the house, including on Vivian Fowler's body.

The state Supreme Court's decision could impact a number of defendants in Volusia and Flagler counties who were convicted since 2002 and sentenced to death on less than unanimous verdicts. Troy Victorino and Jerone Hunter, who were convicted and sentenced to death for the Deltona massacre in which 6 people were killed, are likely to receive new sentencing hearings because neither received a unanimous jury vote for death.

Flagler County defendants on death row without unanimous jury votes besides Snelgrove are Cornelius Baker and William Gregory. Baker kidnapped Elizabeth Uptagrafft during a home invasion robbery in Daytona Beach in 2007 and shot her to death in Flagler County. Gregory shot his girlfriend, Skyler Meekins, and her boyfriend, Daniel Dyer, to death with a shotgun as the pair slept in her grandparent's house near Flagler Beach in 2007.

2 killers get new death sentence hearings

Barry Davis, convicted in 2015 of one of the most heinous crimes in recent Northwest Florida history, will receive a new death sentence hearing by order of the Florida Supreme Court.

The court on Thursday issued 7 rulings on death penalty convictions. 4 of them involved cases in which the defendant was convicted and sentenced to die in Florida's First Judicial Circuit.

Davis and Michael Hernandez, who was sentenced to die March 23, 2007, in Santa Rosa County for killing Ruth Everett, will return to court for a 2nd penalty phase of their trials.

The Supreme Court ruled to uphold the death penalties meted out in 2013 to Steven Cozzie and in 2005 to Jesse Guardado.

Davis, Cozzie and Guardado were all convicted and sentenced in Walton County.

"We're happy to have the 2 sentences confirmed and now we'll begin to prepare for the 2nd penalty phase for Mr. Davis," said Greg Anchors, the chief assistant state attorney for Walton County.

Anchors said Assistant State Attorney Clifton Drake will present the state's case in the 2nd death penalty hearing of Davis.

Anchors also noted that at the same time it ruled he should receive a new death penalty hearing, the Supreme Court upheld Davis' convictions for the killings of John Hughes of Santa Rosa Beach and Heidi Rhodes of Panama City Beach.

Cozzie and Guardado both were sentenced to die by unanimous 12-0 recommendation of the juries that heard their cases. Cozzie raped and killed 15-year-old tourist Courtney Wilkes and Guardado robbed and killed prominent local businesswoman Jackie Malone.

Davis and Hernandez benefited from rulings by the U.S. and Florida Supreme Courts that declared the state's death penalty procedure unconstitutional because it did not require unanimous agreement among jurors that the ultimate punishment was warranted.

The Florida Legislature passed a law this year that requires death penalties be handed out only after a jury votes 12-0 to recommend that sentence.

By the time legislators created the new law, though, the state Supreme Court had ruled that all death penalty convictions since 2002 were subject to review.

Davis was sentenced to die Aug. 31, 2015, for the murders of Hughes and Rhodes.

Although the bodies of the couple were never found, testimony from Davis' girlfriend convinced jurors that he had beaten Hughes and Rhodes unconscious and then left them submerged in a bathtub to die. He then stole all Hughes' belongings and burned the couple's bodies.

The jury recommended by a 9-3 vote to have Davis put to death for killing Hughes and 10-2 that he should die for killing Rhodes.

A Santa Rosa County jury recommended by an 11-1 tally in 2007 that Michael Hernandez be put to death for the killing of Ruth Everett, the mother of a man Hernandez and Christopher Shawn Arnold set out to rob Nov. 8, 2004.

After entering Everett's home, Hernandez broke Ruth Everett's neck and slashed her throat.

Anchors said the Supreme Court has been "spasmodically" ruling recently on requests from around the state for rehearings of death penalty recommendations. Thursday's rulings indicated it had turned its focus to the First Judicial Circuit.

There are 2 remaining First Judicial Circuit cases that have not been ruled on. Those are:

-- Robert Hobart, for whom a Santa Rosa County jury recommended death by a 7-5 vote on Dec. 3, 2012. Hobart was convicted of killing Robert Hamm and Tracie Tolbert.

-- Thomas McCoy, who was sentenced to death Nov. 19, 2010, in Walton County for killing Curtis Brown. Jurors voted 11-1 to recommend death.

Anthony Cozzie death sentence upheld by Supreme Court of Florida

The latest appeal for Steven Anthony Cozzie has been denied by the Florida's highest court.

In an opinion released Thursday, the Supreme Court of Florida upheld Cozzie's death sentence.

In the 6-1 ruling, the justices said Cozzie's sentence "is proportional in relation to other death sentences that this Court has upheld."

Cozzie, 27, strangled, beat and sexually battered Courtney Wilkes, 15, on June 16, 2011 in a wooded area near Seagrove Beach in Walton County. Wilkes was on vacation with her family when the murder happened on the day before the family was scheduled to go home.

A jury recommended death for Cozzie by a 12-0 vote when he was convicted of the crime. Cozzie was 21 when the crime occurred.

In upholding the jury's recommendation of death Justices wrote "This Court has repeatedly affirmed the death penalty where the defendant has kidnapped, sexually battered, and murdered a child victim.... Accordingly, Cozzie's death sentence is proportionate. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Cozzie's conviction for 1st-degree premeditated or felony murder with a weapon and his sentence of death."

Death Sentence Upheld for Walton Murderer

The conviction and death sentence of a Walton County murderer was upheld Thursday by Florida's Supreme Court.

The court ruled the trial judge was not responsible for any errors that merited an appeal and the capital sentence he received was constitutional.

In addition to the death penalty for felony 1st-degree murder, Cozzie received the maximum sentences possible for separate counts of sexual battery, aggravated child abuse, and kidnapping with a weapon with the intent to commit a felony.

Cozzie will serve all these sentences consecutively as punishment for the murder of 15-year-old Georgia resident Courtney Wilkes.

Wilkes was on vacation with her family in Seagrove Beach in June 2011 when Cozzie raped and killed her.

Sources: WFSU news, WJHG news, newsjournalonline.com, nwfdailynews.com, mypanhandle.com, May 12, 2017

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