Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
More death penalty hurdles
Prosecutors face delays despite new Florida law
Even after Florida got a new death penalty law in March, several trials in South Florida remain in limbo over yet more legal wrangling.
Defense lawyers, and some judges, say prosecutors still can’t pursue the death penalty because the grand jury indictments don’t include certain elements needed to support capital charges.
These elements are called aggravating factors, such as the killing was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel,” or possibly involved the slaying of a child.
A state appeals court is considering arguments from lawyers for Fidel Lopez — the Sunrise man accused of disemboweling his girlfriend in 2015 — that challenge his indictment, and the pending decision will affect other cases. It is not known when the court will rule, leaving several death penalty cases stalled.
The changes in the state’s death penalty law followed U.S. and Florida Supreme Court rulings last year that the state’s process for sentencing people to
death was unconstitutional. Unanimous jury votes are now required to recommend death sentences.
But the dispute over the indictment in Lopez and other cases is separate from the retooled death penalty law. The question is whether a state high court opinion from October establishes a higher standard for indictments on capital offenses.
Until now, the use of aggravating factors has been required only as a consideration for sentencing purposes.
In the Lopez appeal, attorneys for the state argue Florida’s Supreme Court — in a March 17 ruling on a different Broward case — already decided the current procedure is legally sound.
Defense attorneys contend that ruling in the case of Jacqueline Luongo — who was convicted April 5 of the 2014 killing of her roommate — actually did not set a precedent for all other capital murder cases, and holding trials at this point would violate the law.
“The right of a criminal defendant to be put on notice of the charges against him is the cornerstone of our constitution, due process and our system of criminal justice in this country,” said Broward Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill, who represents Lopez. “A grand jury must make a factual finding that there are elements of the crime of capital murder.”
Karen M. Gottlieb, co-director of the Florida Center for Capital Representation, agrees it should be up to a “neutral body” or grand jury to determine whether the evidence exists to support an indictment for capital murder.
“The whole idea is having independent citizens act as a bulwark against potential prosecutorial abuse,” said Gottlieb, also a visiting law professor at Florida International University.
Ninett Martinez of Miami says she’s been frustrated over the continuing delays in a trial for the man accused of brutally killing her daughter, Vanessa Williams Bristol, in Palm Beach County two years ago.
She figured the case against John Eugene Chapman would be back on track after the Legislature this spring changed the death penalty law.
“I don’t know why it’s taking so long,” Martinez said of the hold placed on Chapman’s trial since January.
In the case, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Krista Marx agreed with Chapman’s lawyers on the indictment objection.
“Without requiring the State to allege aggravating factors, there is no way to determine from the fact of the indictment whether the defendant has been charged with a crime carrying a maximum possible punishment of life imprisonment (first-degree murder) or with a crime carrying a maximum possible punishment of death (capital firstdegree murder),” Marx wrote in a Jan. 11 order.
Prosecutors challenged Marx’s order in the Fourth District Court of Appeal, which has said whatever it decides in the Lopez case will apply to Chapman.
If the court ultimately upholds the challenge on the indictments, prosecutors still wishing to pursue the death penalty would have to take the cases back to a grand jury and get new indictments that name aggravating factors.
Palm Beach County Assistant Public Defender Elizabeth Ramsey said she hopes prosecutors would re-evaluate whether they really want to seek the death penalty against certain defendants.
Here’s a look at the Chapman and Lopez cases, and other death penalty cases expected to go to trial in the next year. The pending appellate court ruling on the indictment challenge could further delay the cases:
John Eugene Chapman: Prosecutors say the 27-year-old Miami man killed his girlfriend and mother of his then 1-year-old son by stabbing her 25 times in the neck and tossing her and the knife out of her pickup truck in a West Delray ditch.
According to an arrest report, Chapman told a detective he snapped and stabbed Bristol, 28, of Margate, after she reached for a knife during an argument on April 18, 2015.
Ninett Martinez said her daughter worked at a doctor’s office and was the mother of three boys, now 12, 7 and 3.
Fidel Lopez: Jury selection was halted Feb. 13 for the trial of the man who told police he killed his girlfriend, Maria Lizette Nemeth, 31, in a tequila-fueled rage.
Prosecutors won an emergency stay after appealing Broward Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes’ order preventing the death penalty on the grounds the indictment wasn’t sufficient. The trial, on charges of first-degree murder and sexual battery, remains on hold.
During a hearing this year, Lopez testified he was confused when he gave police a confession on Sept. 20, 2015, hours after he called 911 from his apartment.
Lopez, 25, told police he became “a monster” when Nemeth called out someone else’s name during sex, records show.
Rodney Clark: The 50-year-old former Mississippi man and convicted sex offender is accused in the slaying of a Lake Worth-area woman nearly 30 years ago.
Authorities say Clark killed Dana Fader, 27, a mother of three whose body was discovered in the back seat of her 1980 Ford Fairmont on June 20, 1987.
It wasn’t until 2012 that investigators using a national DNA database matched Clark’s DNA to a blood and semen stain found on Fader’s dress. Clark told detectives he was in Palm Beach County in 1987, but denied ever knowing or meeting Fader, having sexual relations with her or being in her car, according to court records.
Just Tuesday, the appellate court cleared the case for trial after putting it on hold while the new death penalty law was pending.
Andrew Hoffman and
Herbert Savell: A June 12 trial is set for both defendants in the 2014 killing of Margeaux Greenwald, 35, of Boynton Beach. That date could change.
Police found Greenwald’s beaten body in a wooded area of Palm Beach Gardens and said Hoffman, 31, and Savell, 28, are responsible.
In a statement to a detective, Savell said they were doing drugs together when Greenwald passed out. Police said the men bound the woman’s hands and feet and stuffed her in the trunk of her car.
Savell said that while driving north, he heard Greenwald making noise from the trunk, and stopped at a Target to buy an aluminum baseball bat.
Police said the men took Greenwald out of the trunk at the wooded area and beat her to death with the bat on June 5, 2014.
Kimberly Lucas: The 43-year-old Jupiter woman is accused of killing her former domestic partner’s 2-year-old daughter and trying to kill the girl’s 10-year-old brother on May 26, 2014.
Lucas gave pills to Elliana Lucas-Jamason and her brother, Ethan, police said. The boy found his sister submerged in a bathtub, tried to revive her, and called 911, records show.
Lucas’ lawyers have said they are pursuing an insanity defense.
Jacquelyn Jamason, the children’s biological mother, has told reporters that the wait for justice has been difficult.
This month, Circuit Judge Charles Burton set the case for trial Sept. 14. However, Lucas’ attorneys say they are preparing to challenge her indictment.